"No clue!" a mystery story by James Hay, Jr

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"NO CLUE!"

4 4

NO CLUE!"

A Mystery Story

BY

JAMES HAY, JR.

AUTHOR OF "THE WINNING CLUE,"
" THE MELWOOD MYSTERY"

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1920

COPTBIGHT, 1920

BT DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.

TO
WILLIAM ( "BUCK") HAY

2136132 '

CONTENTS

CHAPTEB PAGE

I. THE GREY ENVELOPE . . . 1

II. THE WOMAN ON THE LAWN . < 8

III. THE UNEXPECTED WITNESS . . 20

IV. HASTINGS Is RETAINED ... 35
V. THE INTERVIEW WITH MRS. BRACE 48

VI. ACTION BY THE SHERIFF . . 62

VII. THE HOSTILITY OF MR. SLOANE . 75

VIII. THE MAN WHO RAN AWAY . . 91

IX. THE BREAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER 103

X. THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE . 122

XI. MOTIVES REVEALED . . . . 138

XII. HENDRICKS REPORTS . . . 151

XIII. MRS. BRACE BEGINS . . . . 161

XIV. MR. CROWN FORMS AN ALLIANCE 177
XV. IN ARTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM . . 195

XVI. THE BRIBE . . \., . . 213

XVII. " THE WHOLE TRUTH " '...... 224

XVIII. .THE MAN WHO RODE AWAY . 238

XIX. "PURSUIT!" 246

XX. DENIAL OF THE CHARGE . . 261

XXI. " AMPLE EVIDENCE " . ... 273

"NO CLUE!"

THE GREY ENVELOPE

ATHERINE BRACE walked slowly from
I . the mantel-piece to the open window and
back again. Within the last hour she
had done that many times, always to halt be-
fore the mantel and gaze at the oblong, grey
envelope that leaned against the clock. Evi-
dently, she regarded it as a powerful agency.
An observer would have perceived that she saw
tremendous things come out of it — and that she
considered them with mingled satisfaction and
defiance.

Her attitude, however, betrayed no hint of
hesitation. Bather, the fixity of her gaze and
the intensity of her mental concentration threw
into high relief the hardness of her personality.
She was singularly devoid of that quality which
is generally called feminine softness.

And she was a forceful woman. She had
power. It was in her lean, high-shouldered, un-
graceful figure. It was in her thin, mobile lips

2 "NO CLUE ! "

and her high-bridged nose with its thin, clean-cut
nostrils. She impressed herself upon her environ-
ment. Standing there at the mantel, her hands
clasped behind her, she was so caught up by the
possibilities of the future that she succeeded in
imparting to the grey envelope an almost ani-
mate quality.

She became aware once more of voices in the
next room : a man's light baritone in protest,
followed by the taunt of her daughter's laugh.
Although she left the mantel with lithe, swift
step, it was with unusual deliberation that she
opened the communicating door.

Her voice was free of excitement when, ignor-
ing her daughter's caller, she said:

" Mildred, just a moment, please."

Mildred came in and closed the door. Her
mother, now near the window across the room,
looked first at her and then at the grey envelope.

" I thought," Mrs. Brace said, " you'd forgot-
ten you were going to mail it."

"Why didn't you mail it yourself?" The
tone of that was cool insolence.

Mother and daughter were strikingly alike —
hair piled high in a wide wave above the fore-
head; black eyes too restless, but of that gleam-
ing brilliance which heralds a refusal to grow
old. So far, however, the daughter's features
had not assumed an aspect of sharpness, like the

THE GREY ENVELOPE 3

mother's. One would have appraised the older
woman vindictive — malevolent, possibly.

But in the younger face the mouth greatly
softened, almost concealed, this effect of cal-
culating hardness. Mildred Brace's lips had a
softness of line, a vividness of colouring that
indicated emotional depths utterly foreign to
her mother.

They bore themselves now as if they com-
mented on a decision already reached, a mo-
mentous step to which they had given immense
consideration.

" I didn't mail it," Mrs. Brace answered her
daughter's query, " because I knew, if you
mailed it, you'd do as you'd said you wanted to
do."

There was frank emphasis on the " said."

" Your feet don't always follow your intelli-
gence, you know."

"I've been thinking about the thing," Mil-
dred retorted, looking over her mother's shoul-
der into the summer night. " What's the use? "

" What's the use! " Mrs. Brace echoed, incred-
ulous.

" Just that."

" We've been all over it ! You know what it
means to you — to both of us."

They spoke in low tones, careful that the man
in the living room should not hear.

4 "NO CLUE!"

"My dear mother," Mildred said, with a re-
turn of her cool insolence, "you display a con-
fidence hardly warranted by your — and our —
man-experience."

She yawned slightly.

There was a harsher note in her mother's re-

piy-

" He can't refuse. He can't! "

Mildred stared at the grey envelope a full
three minutes. Mrs. Brace, wordless, showing
no uneasiness as to the outcome, waited for her
to speak.

" It's no use, mother," she said at last. " We
can't manage it — him — this thing. It's too late."

The flat finality, the dreariness, of that an-
nouncement angered the older woman. Calm-
ness fell from her. She came away from the
window slowly, her hands clasped tightly at her
back, the upper part of her body bending for-
ward a little, her thin nostrils expanding and
contracting to the force of her hurried breath-
ing like leaves shaken in the wind. The curl
of her thin lips added a curious ferocity to the
words that passed them. She spoke, only when
her face was within a few inches of Mildred's.

" No use! " she said contemptuously, her low-
ered voice explosive with passion. " Why? And
why too late? Have you no self-respect, no will,
no firmness? Are you all jelly and "

THE GREY ENVELOPE 5

She got hold of herself with remarkable effec-
tiveness, throwing off the signs of her wrath
as suddenly as they had appeared. She retreated
a step and laughed, without mirth.

"Oh, well," she said, "it's your party, not
mine, after all. But, in future, my dear, don't
waste your time and mine in school-girl heroics."

She completed her retreat and stood again
at the window. Her self-restraint was, in a
way, fiercer than her rage — and it affected her
daughter.

" You see," she concluded, " why I didn't mail-
it. I knew you wouldn't do the very thing you'd
outlined."

Mildred looked at the envelope again. The
pause that followed was broken by the man in
the other room.

"Mildred," he called.

Mrs. Brace laughed silently. Mildred, seeing
that ridicule, recoiled.

" What are you laughing at? " she demanded.

Her mother pointed to the communicating
door.

" I was thinking of that," she said, " for life
— and," she looked toward the grey envelope,
" the other thing."

" I don't see " Mildred began, and checked

herself, gazing again at the envelope.

Her mother turned swiftly and stood looking

6 " NO CLUE ! "

into the night. The man called again and was
not answered. The two women were motionless.
There was no sound in the room, save the tick-
ing of the clock on the mantel. Two minutes
passed — three.

Mildred went toward the mantel, put out her
hand, withdrew it. She became conscious of the
excessive heat and touched her forehead with
her handkerchief. She glanced at her mother's
motionless figure, started to speak, closed her
parted lips. Indecision shook her. She put out
her hand again, picked up the envelope and
stood tapping it against her left palm.

Mrs. Brace, without moving, spoke at last :

" It's a few minutes of twrelve. If you catch
the midnight collection, he'll get it, out there,
by five o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

There was another pause.

Mildred went slowly to the door leading into
the living room, and once more she was on the
point of speaking.

Mrs. Brace was drumming her fingers on the
window ledge. The action announced plainly
that she had finished with the situation. Mil-
dred put her hand on the knob, pulled the door
half-open, closed it again.

" I've changed my mind," she said, dreariness
still in her voice. " He can't refuse."

Her mother made no comment.

THE GREY ENVELOPE 7

Mildred went into the living room.

" Gene," she said, with that indifference of
tone which a woman employs toward a man
she despises, " I'm going down to mail this."

"Well, I'll swear!" he quarrelled sullenly.
" Been in there all this time writing to him ! "

" Yes ! Look at it ! " she taunted viciously,
and waved the envelope before his eyes.
" Sloanehurst ! "

Taking up his hat, he went with her to the
elevator.

II

THE WOMAN ON THE LAWN

MR, JEFFERSON HASTINGS, unsus-
pecting that he was about to be con-
fronted with the most brutal crime in
all his experience, regretted having come to
" Sloanehurst." He disapproved of himself un-
reservedly. Clad in an ample, antique night-
shirt, he stood at a window of the guest-room
assigned to him and gazed over the steel rims
of his spectacles into the hot, rainy night. His
real vision, however, made no attempt to pierce
the outer darkness. His eyes were turned in-
ward, upon himself, in derision of his behaviour
during the past three hours.

A kindly, reticent gentleman, who looked
much older than his fifty-three years, he made
it his habit to listen rather than talk. His wide
fame as a criminologist and consulting detective
had implanted no egotism in him. He abhorred
the spotlight.

But tonight Judge Wilton, by skilful use of
query, suggestion and reminder, had tempted

THE WOMAN ON THE LAWN 9

him into talking " shop." He had been lured
into the role of monologuist for the benefit of
his host, Arthur Sloane. He had talked bril-
liantly, at length, in detail, holding his three
hearers in spellbound and fascinated interest
while he discoursed on crimes which he had
probed and criminals whom he had known.

Not that he thought he had talked brilliantly !
By no means! He was convinced that nine-
tenths of the interest manifested in his remarks
had been dictated by politeness. Old Hastings
was just that sort of person; he discounted him-
self. He was in earnest, therefore, in his pres-
ent self-denunciation. He sighed, remembering
the volume of his discourse, the awful length of
time in which he had monopolized the conver-
sation.

But his modesty was not his only admirable
characteristic. He had, also, a dependable sense
of humour. It came to his relief now — he
thought of his host, a chuckle throttling the be-
ginnings of a second sigh deep down in his
throat.

This was not the first time that Arthur
Broughton Sloane had provoked a chuckle, al-
though, for him, life was a house of terror, a
torture chamber constructed with fiendish in-
genuity. Mr. Sloane suffered from "nerves."
He was spending his declining years in the ardu-

10 " NO CLUE ! "

ous but surprisingly succcessful task of being
wretched, irritable and ill-at-ease.

The variety of his agonies was equalled only
by the alacrity with which he tested every cure
or remedy of which he happened to hear. He
agreed enthusiastically with his expensive physi-
cians that he was neurasthenic, psychasthenic
and neurotic.

His eyes were weak; his voice was weak; his
spirit was weak. He shivered all day with ter-
ror at the idea of not sleeping at night. Every
evening he quivered with horror at the thought
of not waking up next morning. And yet, de-
spite these absorbing, although not entirely de-
lightful, preoccupations, Mr. Sloane was not
without an object in life.

In fact, he had two objects in life: the hap-
piness of his daughter, Lucille, and the study of
crime and criminals. The latter interest had
brought Hastings to the Sloane country home
in Virginia. Judge Wilton, an old friend of
the wrecked and wealthy Mr. Sloane, had met
the detective on the street in Washington and
urged :

"Go down to Sloanehurst and spend Satur-
day night. I'll be there when you arrive.
Sloane' s got his mind set on seeing you; and
you won't regret it. His library on criminology
will be a revelation, even to you."

THE WOMAN ON THE LAWN 11

And Hastings, largely because he shrank from
seeming ungracious, had accepted Mr. Sloane's
subsequent invitation.

Climbing now into the old-fashioned four-
poster bed, he thought again of his conversation-
spree and longed for self-justification. He sat
up, sheetless, reflecting:

"As a week-ender, I'm a fine old chatter-box!
— But young Webster got me ! What did he say?
— ' The cleverer the criminal, the easier to run
him down. The thug, acting on the spur of the
moment, with a blow in the dark and a getaway
through the night, leaves no trace behind him.
Your " smart criminal " always overreaches
himself.' — A pretty theory, but wild. Anyway,
it made me forget myself; I talked my old fool
head off."

He felt himself blush.

"Wish I'd let Wilton do the disproving; he
was anxious enough."

A mental picture of Sloane consoled him once
more.

" Silk socks and gingham gumption ! " he
thought. " But he's honest in his talk about
being interested in crime. The man loves
crime! — Good thing he's got plenty of
money."

He fell asleep, in a kind of ruminative
growl :

12 "NO CLUE!"

" Made a fool of myself — babbling about what
/ remembered — what / thought! I'll go back
to Washington — in the morning."

Judge Wilton's unsteady voice, supplemented
by a rattling of the doorknob, roused him. He
had thrust one foot out of bed when Wilton
came into the room.

" Quick ! Come on, man ! " the judge in-
structed, and hurried into the hall.

" What's wrong? " Hastings demanded, reach-
ing for his spectacles.

Wilton, on his way down the stairs, flung
back:

" A woman hurt — outside."

From the hall below came Mr. Sloane's high-
pitched, complaining tones :

" Unfathomable angels! What do you say? —
Who? "

Drawing on shoes and trousers, the detective
overtook his host on the front verandah and
followed him down the steps and around the
northeast corner of the house. He noticed that
Sloane carried in one hand an electric torch
and in the other a bottle of smelling salts. It
was no longer raining.

Rounding the corner, they saw, scarcely fifteen
yards from the bay-window of the ballroom, the
upturned face of a woman who lay prostrate on
the lawn. Lights had been turned on in the

THE WOMAN ON THE LAWN 13

house, making a glow which cut through the
starless night.

The woman did not move. Judge Wilton was
in the act of kneeling beside her.

" Hold on ! " Hastings called out. " Don't dis-
turb her — if she's dead."

" She is dead! " said Wilton.

" Who is she? " The detective, trying to find
signs of life, put his hand over her heart.

" I don't know," Wilton answered the ques-
tion. " Do you, Sloane? "

"Of course, I don't!"

Hastings said afterwards that Sloane's reply
expressed astonished resentment that he should
be suspected of knowing anybody vulgar enough
to be murdered on his lawn.

The detective drew back his hand. His fingers
were dark with blood.

At that moment Berne Webster, Lucille
Sloane's fiance', came from the rear of the house,
announcing breathlessly :

" No 'phone connection — this time of night,
judge. — It's past midnight. — I sent chauffeur —
Lally— for the sheriff."

Hastings stood up, his first, cursory examina-
tion concluded.

" No doubt about it," he said. " She's dead.—
Bring a blanket, somebody ! "

Mr. Sloane's nerves had the best of him by

14 "NO CLUE!"

this time. He trembled like a man with a chill,
rattling the bottle of smelling salts against the
metal end of his electric torch. He had on slip-
pers and a light dressing gown over his pajamas.

Wilton was fully dressed, young Webster col-
larless but wearing a black, light-weight loung-
ing jacket. Hastings was struck with the dif-
ferent degrees of their dress, or undress.

" Who found her? " he asked, looking at Web-
ster.

"Judge Wilton— and I," said Webster, so
short of breath that his chest heaved.

"How long ago?"

WTilton answered that:

" A few minutes, hardly five minutes. I ran
in to call you and Sloane."

" And Mr.— you, Mr. Webster? "

" The judge told me to — to get the sheriff —
by telephone."

Hastings knelt again over the woman's body.

"Here, Mr. Sloane," he ordered, "hold that
torch closer, will you? "

Mr. Sloane found compliance impossible. He
could not steady his hand sufficiently.

" Hold that torch, judge," Hastings prompted.

" It's knocked me out — completely," Sloane
said, surrendering the torch to Wilton.

Webster, the pallor still on his face, a look
of horror in his eyes, stood on the side of the

THE WOMAN ON THE LAWN '15

body opposite the detective. At brief intervals
he raised first one foot, then the other, clear
of the ground and set it down again. He was
unconscious of making any movement at all.

Hastings, thoroughly absorbed in the work
before him, went about it swiftly, with now and
then brief, murmured comment on what he did
and saw. Although his ample night-shirt, stuffed
into his equally baggy trousers, contributed
nothing but comicality to his appearance, the
others submitted without question to his domi-
nation. There was about him suddenly an at-
mosphere of power that impressed even the little
group of awe-struck servants who stood a few
feet away.

" Stabbed," he said, after he had run his hands
over the woman's figure ; " died instantly — must
have. Got her heart. — Young — not over twenty-
five, would you say? — Not dead long. — Anybody
call a doctor? "

" I told Lally to stop by Dr. Garnet's house
and send him — at once," Webster said, his
voice low, and broken. " He's the coroner,
too."

Hastings continued his examination. The
brief pause that ensued was broken by a woman's
voice :

"Pauline! Pauline!"

The call came from one of the upstairs win-

16 " NO CLUE ! "

dows. Hearing it, a woman in the servant group
hurried into the house.

Webster groaned : " My God ! "

" Frantic fiends ! It gets worse and worse ! "
Sloane objected shrilly. " My nerves ! And
Lucille's annoyed — shocked ! "

He held the smelling bottle to his nose, breath-
ing deeply.

"Here! Take this!" Hastings directed, and
put up his hand abruptly.

Sloane had so gone to pieces that the move-
ment frightened him. He stepped back in such
obvious terror that a hoarse guffaw of invol-
untary ridicule escaped one of the servants. The
detective, finding that his kneeling posture made
it difficult to put his handkerchief back into his
trousers pocket, had thrust it toward Sloane.
That gentleman having so suddenly removed
himself out of reach, Hastings stuck the handker-
chief into Judge Wilton's coat-pocket.

Arthur Sloane, the detective said later, never
forgave him that unexpected wave of the hand-
kerchief— and the servant's ridiculing laugh.

Hastings looked up to Wilton.

" Did you find any weapon? "

" I didn't look— didn't take time."

" Neither did I," young Webster added.

Hastings, disregarding the wet grass, was on
his hands and knees, searching. He accom-

THE WOMAN ON THE LAWN 17

plished a complete circuit of the body, his round-
shouldered, stooping figure making grotesque,
elephantine shadows under the light of the torch
as he moved about slowly, not trusting his eyes,
but feeling with his hands every inch of the
smallest, half-lit spaces.

Nobody else took part in the search. Having
accepted his leadership from the outset, they
seemed to take it for granted that he needed
no help. Mentally benumbed by the horror of
the tragedy, they stood there in the quiet, sum-
mer night, barren of ideas. They were like
children, waiting to be instructed.

Hastings stood erect, pulling and hauling at
his trousers.

"Can't find a knife or anything," he said.
" Glad I can't. Hope he took it with him."

"Why?" asked Sloane, through chattering
teeth.

" May help us to find him — may be a clue in
the end."

He was silent a moment, squinting under the
rims of his spectacles, looking down at the fig-
ure of the dead woman. He had already cov-
ered the face with the hat she had worn, a black
straw sailor; but neither he nor the others found
it easy to forget the peculiar and forbidding ex-
pression the features wore, even in death. It
was partly fear, partly defiance — as if her last

18 " NO CLUE ! "

conscious thought had been a flitting look into
the future, an exulting recognition of the certain
consequences of the blow that had struck her
down.

Put into words, it might have been : " You've
murdered me, but you'll pay for it — terribly ! "

A servant handed Hastings the blanket he had
ordered. He looked toward the sky.

" I don't think it will rain any more," he
said. " And it's best to leave things as they are
until the coroner arrives. — He'll be here soon? "

" Should get here in half an hour or so," Judge
Wilton informed him.

The detective arranged the blanket so that it
covered the prone form completely, leaving the
hat over the face as he had first placed it. With
the exception of the hat, he had disturbed no part
of the apparel. Even the folds of the raincoat,
which fell away from the body and showed the
rain-soaked black skirt, he left as he had found
them. The white shirtwaist, also partly ex-
posed now, was dry.

" Anybody move her hat before I came out? "
he asked; "you, judge; or you, Mr. Webster?"

They had not touched it, they said ; it was on
the grass, beside her head, when they discov-
ered the body, and they had left it there.

Again he was silent, brows drawn together
as he stood over the murdered woman. Finally,

THE WOMAN ON THE LAWN 19

he raised his head swiftly and, taking each in
turn, searched sharply the countenances of the
three men before him.

" Does — didn't anybody here know this
woman? " he asked.

Berne Webster left his place at the opposite
side of the body and came close to Hastings.

" I know who she is," he said, his voice lower
even than before, as if he wished to keep that
information from the servants.

Hastings' keen scrutiny had in it no intimation
of surprise. Waiting for Webster to continue,
he was addressed by the shivering Mr. Sloane :

" Mr. Hast — Mr. Hastings, take charge of
— of things. Will you? You know about these
things."

The detective accepted the suggestion.

" Suppose we get at what we know about it
— what we all know. Let's go inside." He
turned to the servants : " Stay here until you're
called. See that nothing is disturbed, nothing
touched."

He led the way into the house. Sloane, near
collapse, clung to one of Judge Wilton's broad
shoulders. It was young Webster who, as the
little procession passed the hatrack in the front
hall, caught up a raincoat and threw it over the
half-clad Hastings.

Ill

THE UNEXPECTED WITNESS

IN the library Hastings turned first to Judge
Wilton for a description of the discovery
of the body. The judge was in better con-
dition than the others for connected narrative,
Arthur Sloane had sunk into a morris chair,
where he sighed audibly and plied himself by
fits and starts with the aroma from the bottle of
smelling salts. Young Webster, still breathing
as if he had been through exhausting physical
endeavour, stood near the table in the centre of
the room, mechanicall*; shifting his weight from
foot to foot.

Wilton, seated half-across the room from
Hastings, drew, absently, on a dead cigar-stump.
A certain rasping note in his voice was his only
remaining symptom of shock. He had the stern
calmness of expression that is often seen in the
broad, irregularly-featured face in early middle
age.

" I can tell you in very few words," he said,
addressing the detective directly. " We all left
this room, you'll remember, at eleven o'clock.
20

THE UNEXPECTED WITNESS 21

I found my bedroom uncomfortable, too warm.
Besides, it had stopped raining. When I no-
ticed that, I decided to go out and smoke my
good-night cigar. This is what's left of it."

He put a finger to the unlighted stump still
between his lips.

" What time did you go out? " asked Hastings.

" Probably, a quarter of an hour after I'd gone
upstairs — fifteen or twenty minutes past eleven,
I should guess."

" How did you go out — by what door? "

" The front door. I left it unlocked, but not
open. At first I paced up and down, on the
south side of the house, under the trees. It was
reasonably light there then — that is to say, the
clouds had thinned a little, and, after my eyes
had got accustomed to it, I had no trouble in
avoiding the trees and shrubbery.

" Then a cloud heavier than the others came
up, I suppose. Anyway, it was much darker.
There wasn't a light in the house, except in my
room and Berne Webster's. Yours was out, I
remember. I passed by the front of the house
then, and went around to the north side. It
was darker there, I thought, than it had been
under the trees on the south side."

" How long had you been out then, al-
together? "

" Thirty or forty minutes." He looked at his

22 "NO CLUE!"

watch. " It's a quarter past twelve now. Let
me see. I found the body a few minutes after
I changed over to the north side. I guess I
found it about five minutes before midnight —
certainly not more than twenty minutes ago."

Hastings betrayed his impatience only by
squinting under his spectacles and down the line
of his nose, eying Wilton closely.

"All right, judge! Let's have it."

" I was going along slowly, very slowly, not
doing much more than feeling my way with
my feet on the close-shaven grass. It was the
darkest night I ever saw. Literally, I couldn't
have seen my hand in front of me.

" I had decided to turn about and go indoors
when I was conscious of some movement, or
slight sound, directly in front of me, and down-
ward, at my feet. I got that impression."

"What movement? You mean the sound of
a fall? "

"No; not that exactly."

"A footstep?"

" No. I hadn't any definite idea what sort of
noise it was. I did think that, perhaps, it was
a dog or a cat. Just then my foot came in
contact with something soft. I stooped down
instinctively, immediately.

"At that moment, that very second, a light
flashed on in Arthur's bedroom. That's between

THE UNEXPECTED WITNESS 23

this room and the big ballroom — on this floor,
of course. That light threw a long, illuminating
shaft into the murky darkness, the end of it
coming just far enough to touch me and — what
I found — the woman's body. I saw it by that
light before I had time to touch it with my
hand."

The judge stopped and drew heavily on his
dead cigar.

"All right. See anything else?" Hastings
urged.

"Yes; I saw Berne Webster. He had made
the noise which attracted my attention."

" How do you know that? "

" He Tnust have. He was stooping down, too,
on the other side of the body, facing me, when
the light went on "

Sloane, twisting nervously in his chair, cut
into Wilton's narrative.

" I can put this much straight," he said in
shrill complaint : " I turned on the light you're
talking about. I hadn't been able to sleep."

" Let's have this, one at a time, if you don't
mind, Mr. Sloane," the detective suggested,
watching Webster.

The young man, staring with fascinated inten-
sity at Judge Wilton, seemed to experience some
new horror as he listened.

" He was on the other side of it," the judge

24 "NO CLUE!" ,

continued, " and practically in the same posi-
tion that- 1 was. We faced each other across
the body. I think that describes the discovery,
as you call it. We immediately examined the
woman, looking for the wound, and found it.
When we saw she was dead, we came in to wake
you — and try to get a doctor. I told Berne to
do that."

During the last few sentences Hastings had
been walking slowly from his chair to the library
door and back, his hands gouged deep into his
trouser-pockets, folds of his night-shirt protrud-
ing from and falling over the waistband of the
trousers, the raincoat hanging baggily from his
shoulders. Ludicrous as the costume was, how-
ever, the old man so dominated them still that
none of them, not even Wilton, questioned his
authority.

And yet, the thing he was doing should have
appealed to them as noteworthy. A man of
less power could not have accomplished it.
Coming from a sound sleep to the scene of a
murder, he had literally picked up these men
who had discovered it and who must be closely
touched by it, had overcome their agitation, had
herded them into the house and, with amazing
promptness, had set about the task of getting
from them the stories of what they knew and
what they had done.

THE UNEXPECTED WITNESS 25

Appreciating his opportunity, he had deter-
mined to bring to light at once everything they
knew. He devoted sudden attention now to Web-
ster, whom he knew by reputation — a lawyer
thirty years of age, brilliant in the criminal
courts, and at present striving for a foothold in
the more remunerative ranks of civil practice.
He had never been introduced to him, however,
before meeting him at Sloanehurst.

"Who touched that body first— Mr. Web-
ster? " he demanded, his slow promenade unin-
terrupted as he kept his eyes on the law-
yer's.

" Judge — I don't know, I believe," Webster re-
plied uncertainly. " Who did, judge? "

" I want your recollection," Hastings insisted,
kindly in spite of the unmistakable command
of his tone. " That's why I asked you."

"Why?"

" For one thing, it might go far toward show-
ing who was really first on the scene."

" I see; but I really don't remember. I'm not
sure that either of us touched the body — jusi-
then. I think we both drew back, instinctively,
when the light flashed on. Afterwards, of course,
we both touched her — looking for signs of
life."

The detective came to a standstill in front of
Webster.

26 " NO CLUE ! "

" Who reached the body first? Can you say? "

" No. I don't think either was first. We got
there together."

" Simultaneously? "

" Yes."

"But I'm overlooking something. How did
you happen to be there? "

"That's simple enough," Webster said, his
brows drawn together, his eyes toward the floor,
evidently making great effort to omit no de-
tail of what had oeccurred. " I went to my
room when we broke up here, at eleven. I read
for a while. I got tired of that — it was close
and hot. Besides, I never go to bed before one
in the morning — that is, practically never. And
I wasn't sleepy.

" I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to
twelve. Like the judge, I noticed that it had
stopped raining. I thought I'd have a better
night's sleep if I got out and cooled off thor-
oughly. My room, the one I have this time, is
close to the back stairway. I went down that,
and out the door on the north side."

" Were you smoking? " Hastings put the
query sharply, as if to test the narrator's nerves.

Webster's frown deepened.

" No. But I had cigarettes and matches with
me. I intended to smoke — and walk about."

" But what happened? "

THE UNEXPECTED WITNESS 27

" It was so much darker than I had thought
that I groped along with my feet, much as
Judge Wilton did. I was making my way
toward the front verandah. I went on, sliding
my feet on the wet grass."

"Any reason for doing that, do you remem-
ber? Are there any obstructions there, anything
but smooth, open lawn? "

"No. It was merely an instinctive act — in
pitch dark, you know."

Webster, his eyes still toward the floor, waited
for another question. Not getting it, he re-
sumed :

" My foot struck something soft. I thought it
was a wet cloak, something of that sort, left out
in the rain. I hadn't heard a thing. And I had
no premonition of anything wrong. I bent over,
with nothing more than sheer idle curiosity, to
put my hand on whatever the thing was. And
just then the light went on in Mr. Sloane's bed-
room. The judge and I were looking at each
other across somebody lying on the ground, face
upward."

" Either of you cry out? "

« No."

" Say anything? "

« Not much."

« Well, what? "

" I remember the judge said, ' Is she dead? '

28 "NO CLUE!"

I said, ' How is she hurt? ' We didn't say much
while we were looking for the wound."

" Did you tell Judge Wilton you knew her? "

" No. There wasn't time for any explanation
— specially."

" But you do know her? "

" I told you that, sir, outside — just now."

"All right. Who is she?" Hastings put
that query carelessly, in a way which might
have meant that he had heard the most impor-
tant part of the young lawyer's story. That
impression was heightened by his beginning
again to pace the floor.

" Her name's Mildred Brace," replied Web-
ster, moistening his lips with his tongue. " She
was my stenographer for eight months."

The detective drew up sharply.

"When?"

" Until two weeks ago."

"She resign?"

« Yes. No— I discharged her."

"What for?"

" Incompetence."

" I don't understand that exactly. You mean
you employed her eight months although she
was incompetent? "

"That's pretty bald," Webster objected.
" Her incompetence came, rather, from tempera-
ment. She was, toward the last, too nervous,

THE UNEXPECTED WITNESS 29

excitable. She was more trouble than she was
worth."

"Ah, that's different," Hastings said, with a
significance that was clear. " People might have
thought," he elaborated, " if you had fired her
for other reasons, this tragedy tonight would
have put you in an unenviable position — to say
the least."

He had given words to the vague feeling which
had depressed them all, ever since the discovery
of the murder; that here was something vastly
greater than the accidental finding of a person
killed by an outsider, that the crime touched
Sloanehurst personally. The foreboding had
been patent — almost, it seemed, a tangible thing
— but, until this moment, each had steered clear
of it, in speech.

Webster's response was bitter.

" They'll want to say it anyway, I guess." To
that he added, in frank resentment : " And I
might as well enter a denial here : I had nothing
to do with the — this whole lamentable affair ! "

The silence in which he and Hastings regarded
each other was broken by Arthur Sloane's queru-
lous words:

" Why — why, in the name of all the inscrutable
saints, this thing should have happened at
Sloanehurst, is more than I can say ! Jumping
angels! Now, let me tell you what I "

30 "NO CLUE!"

He stopped, hearing light footfalls coming
down the hall. There was the swish of silk, a
little outcry half-repressed, and Lucille Sloane
stood in the doorway. One hand was at her
breast, the other against the door-frame, to
steady her tall, slightly swaying figure. Her
hair, a pyramid on her head, as if the black,
heavy masses of it had been done by hurrying
fingers, gave to her unusual beauty now an
added suggestion of dignity.

Profoundly moved as she was, there was noth-
ing of the distracted or the inadequate about her.
Hastings, who had admired her earlier in the
evening, saw that her poise was far from over-
thrown. It seemed to him that she even had
considered how to wear with extraordinary effect
the brilliant, vari-coloured kimono draped about
her. The only criticism of her possible was that,
perhaps, she seemed a trifle too imperious — but,
for his part, he liked that.

" A thoroughbred ! " he catalogued her, men-
tally.

" You will excuse me, father," she said from
the doorway, " but I couldn't help hearing."
She thrust forward her chin. " Oh, I had to
hear! — And there's something I have to tell."

Her glance went at last from Sloane to Hast-
ings as she advanced slowly into the room.

The detective pushed forward a chair for her.

THE UNEXPECTED WITNESS 31

"That's fine, Miss Sloane," he assured her.
" I'm sure you're going to help us."

" It isn't much," she qualified, " but I think
it's important."

Still she looked at neither Berne Webster nor
Judge Wilton. And only a man trained as
Hastings was to keenness of observation would
have seen the slight but incessant tremour of her
fingers and the constant, convulsive play of the
muscles under the light covering of her black
silk slippers.

Sloane, alone, had remained seated. She was
looking up to Hastings, who stood several feet
in front of Webster and the judge.

" I had gone to sleep," she said, her voice low,
but musical and clear. " I waked up when I
heard father moving about — his room is directly
under mine; and, now that Aunt Lucy is away,
I'm always more or less anxious about him.
And I knew he had got quiet earlier, gone to
sleep. It wasn't like him to be awake again so
soon.

" I sprang out of bed, really very quickly. I
listened for a few seconds, but there was no
further sound in father's room. The night was
unusually quiet. There wasn't a sound — at first.
Then I heard something. It was like somebody
running, running very fast, outside, on the
grass."

32 "NO CLUE!"

She paused. Hastings was struck by her air
of alertness, or of prepared waiting, of readiness
for questions.

" Which way did the footsteps go? " he asked.

" From the house — down the slope, toward the
little gate that opens on the road."

"Then what?"

" I wondered idly what it meant, but it made
no serious impression on me. I listened again
for sounds in father's room. There was none.
Struck again by the heavy silence — it was almost
oppressive, coming after the rain — I went to the
window. I stood there, I don't know how long.
I think I was day-dreaming, lazily running
things over in my mind. I don't think it was
very long.

" And then father turned on the light in his
room." She made a quick gesture with her left
hand, wonderfully expressive of shock. " I shall
never forget that! The long, narrow panel of
light reached out into the dark like an ugly,
yellow arm — reached out just far enough to
touch and lay hold of the picture there on the
grass; a woman lying on the drenched ground,
her face up, and bending over her Judge Wil-
ton and Berne — Mr. Webster.

" I knew she'd been hurt dreadfully ; her feet
were drawn up, her knees high ; and I could see
the looks of horror on the men's faces."

THE UNEXPECTED WITNESS 33

She paused, giving all her strength to the
effort to retain her self-control before the assail-
ing memory of what she had seen.

" That was all, Miss Sloane? " the detective
prompted, in a kindly tone.

"Yes, quite," she said. "But I'd heard
Berne's — what he was saying to you — and the
judge's description of what they'd seen; and I
thought you would like to know of the footsteps
I'd heard — because they were the murderer's;
they must have been. I knew it was important,
most important."

" You were entirely right," he agreed warmly.
"Thank you, very much."

He went the length of the room and halted
by one of the bookcases, a weird, lumpy old fig-
ure among the shadows in the corner. He was
scraping his cheek with his thumb, and looking
at the ceiling, over the rims of his specta-
cles.

Arthur Sloane sighed his impatience.

"Those knees drawn up," Hastings said at
last ; " I was just thinking. They weren't drawn
up when I saw the body. Were they? "

"We'd straightened the limbs," Webster an-
swered. " Thought I'd mentioned that."

" No. — Then, there might have been a struggle?
You think the woman had put up a fight — for her
life? — and was overpowered? "

34 "NO CLUE!"

" Well," deliberated Webster, " perhaps ; even
probably."

" Strange," commented the detective, eqnally
deliberate. " I hadn't thought so. I would have
said she'd been struck down unawares — without
the slightest warning."

IV

HASTINGS IS RETAINED

ARRIVAL of the officials, Sheriff Crown and
the coroner, Dr. Garnet, brought the con-
ference to an abrupt close. Hastings,
seeing the look in the girl's eyes, left the library
in advance of the other men. Lucille followed
him immediately.

"Mr. Hastings!"

" Yes, Miss Sloane? "

He turned and faced her.

" I must talk to you, alone. Won't you come
in here? "

She preceded him into the parlour across the
hall. When he put his hand on the electric
switch, she objected, saying she preferred to be
without the lights. He obeyed her. The glow
from the hall was strong enough to show him
the play of her features — which was what he
wanted.

They sat facing each other, directly under the
chandelier in the middle of the spacious room.
He thought she had chosen that place to avoid

35

36 "NO CLUE!"

all danger of being overheard in any direction.
He saw, too, that she was hesitant, half -regret-
ting having brought him there. He read her
doubts, saw how pain and anxiety mingled in
her wide-open grey eyes.

" Yes, I know," he said with a smile that was
reassuring ; " I don't look like a particularly
helpful old party, do I?"

He liked her more and more. In presence of
mind, he reflected, she surpassed the men of
the household. In spite of the agitation that
still kept her hands trembling and gave her
that odd look of fighting desperately to hold her-
self together, she had formed a plan which she
was on the point of disclosing to him.

Her courage impressed him tremendously.
And, divining what her request would be, he
made up his mind to help her.

" It's not that," she said, her lips twisting to
the pretence of a smile. " I know your repu-
tation— how brilliant you are. I was thinking
you might not understand what I wanted to
say."

" Try me," he encouraged. " I'm not that
old!"

It occurred to him that she referred to Berne
Webster and herself, fearing, perhaps, his lack
of sympathy for a love affair.

"It's this," she began a rush of words, put-

HASTINGS IS RETAINED 37

ting away all reluctance : " I think I realize more
keenly than father how disagreeable this awful
thing is going to be — the publicity, the news-
papers, the questions, the photographs. I know,
too, that Mr. Webster's in an unpleasant situa-
tion. I heard what he said to you in the library,
every word of it. — But I don't have to think
about him so much as about my father. He's a
very sick man, Mr. Hastings. The shock of
this, the resultant shocks lasting through days
and weeks, may be fatal for him.

"Besides," she explained, attaining greater
composure, " he is so nervous, so impatient of.
discomfort and irritating things, that he may
bring upon himself the enmity of the authorities,
the investigators. He may easily provoke them
so that they would do anything to annoy him.

" I see you don't understand ! " she lamented
suddenly, turning her head away a little.

He could see how her lips trembled, as if she
held them together only by immense resolution.

" I think I do," he contradicted kindly. " You
want my help; isn't that it?"

" Yes." She looked at him again, with a quick
turn of her head, her eyes less wide-open while
she searched his face. " I want to employ you.
Can't I — what do they call it? — retain you? "

"To do what, exactly?"

"Oh-h-h!" The exclamation had the hint of

38 "NO CLUE!"

a sob in it; she was close to the end of her
strength. " I'm a little uncertain about that.
Can't you help me there? I want the real crim-
inal found soon, immediately, as soon as possible.
I want you to work on that. And, in the mean-
time, I want you to protect us — father — do
things so that we shan't be overrun by reporters
and detectives, all the dreadful results of the
discovery of a murder at our very front door."

He was thoughtful, looking into her eyes.

" The fee is of no matter, the amount of it,"
she added impulsively.

" I wasn't thinking of that — although, of
course, I don't despise fees. You see, the author-
ities, the sheriff, might not want my assistance,
as you call it. Generally, they don't. They look
upon it as interference and meddling."

" Still, you can work independently — retained
by Mr. Arthur Sloane — can't you? "

He studied her further. For her age — hardly
more than twenty-two — she was strikingly ma-
ture of face, and self-reliant. She had, he con-
cluded, unusual strength of purpose; she was
capable of large emotionalism, but mere feeling
would never cloud her mind.

" Yes," he answered her ; " I can do that. I
will."

" Ah," she breathed, some of the tenseness go-
ing out of her, " you are very good ! "

HASTINGS IS RETAINED 39

" And you will help me, of course."

« Of course."

" You can do so now," he pressed this point.
" Why is it that all of you — I noticed it in the
men in the library, and when we were outside,
on the lawn — why is it that all of you think this
crime is going to hit you, one of you, so hard?
You seem to acknowledge in advance the guilt
of one of you."

"Aren't you mistaken about that?"

" No. It struck me forcibly. Didn't you feel
it? Don't you, now? "

"Why, no!"

He was certain that she was not frank with
him.

" You mean," she added quickly, eyes nar-
rowed, " I suspect — actually suspect some one
in this house? "

In his turn, he was non-committal, retorting:

"Don't you?"

She resented his insistence.

" There is only one idea possible, I think," she
declared, rising : " the footsteps that I heard fled
from the house, not into it. The murderer is
not here."

He stood up, holding her gaze.

" I'm your representative now, Miss Sloane,"
he said, his manner fatherly in its solicitude.
" My duty is to save you, and yours, in every

40 "NO CLUE!"

way I can — without breaking the law. You re-
alize what my job is — do you? "

" Yes, Mr. Hastings."

" And the advisability, the necessity, of utter
frankness between us? "

" Yes." She said that with obvious impa-
tience.

" So," he persisted, " you understand my mo-
tive in asking you now: is there nothing more
you can tell me — of what you heard and saw,
when you were at your window? "

" Nothing — absolutely," she said, again obvi-
ously annoyed.

He was close to a refusal to have anything
to do with the case. He was sure that she
did not deal openly with him. He tried
again :

" Nothing more, Miss Sloane? Think, please.
Nothing to make you, us, more suspicious of
Mr. Webster? "

"Suspect Berne!"

This time she was frank, he saw at once. The
idea of the young lawyer's guilt struck her as
out of the question. Her confidence in that was
genuine, unalloyed. It was so emphatic that it
surprised him. Why, then, this anxiety which
had driven her to him for help? What caused
the fear which, at the beginning of their inter-
view, had been so apparent?

HASTINGS IS RETAINED 41

He thought with great rapidity, turning the
thing over in his mind as he stood confronting
her. If she did not suspect Webster, whom
did she suspect? Her father?

That was it ! — her father !

The discovery astounded Hastings — and ap-
pealed to his sympathy, tremendously.

" My poor child ! " he said, on the warm im-
pulse of his compassion.

She chose to disregard the tone he had used.
She took a step toward the door, and paused,
to see that he followed her.

He went nearer to her, to conclude what he
had wanted to say:

" I shall rely on this agreement between us :
I can come to you on any point that occurs to
me? You will give me anything, and all the
things, that may come to your knowledge as
the investigation proceeds? Is it a bargain, Miss
Sloane? "

" A bargain, Mr. Hastings," she assented. " I
appreciate, as well as you do, the need of fair
dealing between us. Anything else would be
foolish."

" Fine ! That's great, Miss Sloane ! " He was
still sorry for her. " Now, let me be sure, once
for all: you're concealing nothing from me, no
little thing even, on the theory that it would be
of no use to me and, therefore, not worth dis-

42 "NO CLUE!"

cussing? You told us all you knew — in the
library? "

She moved toward the door to the hall again.

" Yes, Mr. Hastings — and I'm at your service
altogether."

He would have sworn that she was not telling
the truth. This time, however, he had no thought
of declining connection with the case. His com-
passion for her had grown.

Besides, her fear of her father's implication
in the affair — was there foundation for it, more
foundation than the hasty thought of a daugh-
ter still labouring under the effects of a great
shock? He thought of Sloane, effeminate, shrill
of voice, a trembling wreck, long ago a self-con-
fessed ineffective in the battle of life — he, a mur-
derer; he, capable of forceful action of any kind?
It seemed impossible.

But the old man kept that idea to himself, and
instructed Lucille.

" Then," he said, " you must leave things to
me. Tell your father so. Tomorrow, for in-
stance— rather this morning, for it's already a
new day — reporters will come out here, and de-
tectives, and the sheriff. All of them will want
to question you, your father, all the members
of the household. Refer them to me, if you
•care to.

" If you discuss theories and possibilities, you

HASTINGS IS RETAINED 43

will only make trouble. To the sheriff, and any-
body representing him, state the facts, the bare
facts — that's all. May I count on you for
that? "

" Certainly. That's why I've cm — why I want
your help: to avoid all the unpleasantness pos-
sible."

When she left him to go to her father's room,
Hastings joined the group on the front verandah.
Sheriff Crown and Dr. Garnet had already
viewed the body.

" I'll hold the inquest at ten tomorrow morn-
ing, rather this morning," the coroner said.
"That's hurrying things a little, but I'll have
a jury here by then. They have to see the body
before it's taken to Washington."

" Besides," observed^ the sheriff, " nearly all
the necessary witnesses are here in this house
party."

Aware of the Hastings fame, he drew the old
man to one side.

" I'm going into Washington," he announced,
" to see this Mrs. Brace, the girl's mother. Web-
ster says she has a flat, up on Fourteenth street
there. Good idea, ain't it? "

"Excellent," assured Hastings, and put in
a suggestion : " You've heard of the fleeting foot-
steps Miss Sloane reported?"

"Yes. I thought Mrs. Brace might tell me

44 "NO CLUE!"

who that could have been — some fellow jealous
of the girl, I'll bet."

The sheriff, who was a tall, lanky man with a
high, hooked nose and a pointed chin that looked
like a large knuckle, had a habit of thrusting
forward his upper lip to emphasize his words.
He thrust it forward now, making his bristly,
close-cropped red moustache stand out from his
face like the quills of a porcupine.

" I'd thought of that — all that," he continued.
" Looks like a simple case to me — very."

" It may be," said Hastings, sure now that
Crown would not suggest their working
together.

" Also," the sheriff told him, " I'll take this."

He held out the crude weapon with which,
apparently, the murder had been committed. It
was a dagger consisting of a sharpened nail file,
about three inches long, driven into a roughly
rounded piece of wood. This wooden handle was
a little more than four inches in length and two
inches thick. Hastings, giving it careful exami-
nation, commented:

" He shaped that handle with a pocket-knife.
Then, he drove the butt-end of the nail file into
it. Next, he sharpened the end of the file — put
a razor edge on it. — Where did you get this, Mr.
Crown?"

" A servant, one of the coloured women, picked

HASTINGS IS EETAINED 45

it up as I came in. You were still in the library."

" Where was it? "

" About fifteen or twenty feet from the body.
She stumbled on it, in the grass. Ugly thing,
sure ! "

" Yes," Hastings said, preoccupied, and added :
" Let me have it again."

He took off his spectacles and, screwing into
his right eye a jeweller's glass, studied it for
several minutes. If he made an important dis-
covery, he did not communicate it to Crown.

" It made an ugly hole," was all he said.

" You see the blood on it? " Crown prompted.

" Oh, yes ; lucky the rain stopped when it did."

"When did it stop — out here?" Crown in-
quired.

" About eleven ; a few minutes after I'd gone
up to bed."

" So she was killed between eleven and mid-
night? "

"No doubt about that. Her hat had fallen
from her head and was bottom up beside her.
The inside of the crown and all the lower brim
was dry as a bone, while the outside, even where
it did not touch the wet grass, was wet. That
showed there wasn't any rain after she was
struck down."

The sheriff was impressed by the other's keen-
ness of observation.

46 "NO CLUE!"

" That's so," he said. " I hadn't noticed it."

He sought the detective's opinion.

" Mr. Hastings, you've just heard the stories
of everybody here. Do me a favour, will you?
Is it worth while for me to go into Washing-
ton? Tell me: do you think anybody here at
Sloanehurst is responsible for this murder? "

" Mr. Crown," the old man answered, " there's
no proof that anybody here killed that woman."

" Just what I thought," Mr. Crown applauded
himself. " Glad you agree with me. It'll turn
out a simple case. Wish it wouldn't. Nominat-
ing primary's coming on in less than a month.
I'd get a lot more votes if I ran down a mys-
terious fellow, solved a tough problem."

He strode down the porch steps and out to
his car — for the ten-mile run into Washington.
Hastings was strongly tempted to accompany
him, even without being invited; it would mean
much to be present when the mother first heard
of her daughter's death.

But he had other and, he thought, more im-
portant work to do. Moving so quietly that his
footsteps made no sound, he gained the staircase
in the hall and made his way to the second
floor. If anybody had seen him and inquired
what he intended to do, he would have ex-
plained that he was on his way to get his own
coat in place of the one which young Webster

HASTINGS IS RETAINED 47

had, with striking thoughtfulness, thrown over
him.

As a matter of fact, his real purpose was to
search Webster's room.

But experience had long since imbued him
with contempt for the obvious. Secure from in-
terruption, since his fellow-guests were still in
the library, he did not content himself with his
hawk-like scrutiny of the one room ; he explored
the back stairway which had been Webster's exit
to the lawn, Judge Wilton's room, and his own.

In the last stage of the search he encountered
his greatest surprise. Looking under his own
bed by the light of a pocket torch, he found
that one of the six slats had been removed from
its place and laid cross-ways upon the other five.
The reason for this was apparent; it had been
shortened by between four and five inches.

"Cut off with a pocket-knife," the old man
mused ; " crude work, like the shaping of the
handle of that dagger — downstairs ; same wood,
too. And in my room, from my bed

" I wonder "

With a low whistle, expressive of incredulity,
he put that new theory from him and went down
to the library.

THE INTERVIEW WITH MRS. BRACE

GRATIFIED, and yet puzzled, by the re-
sults of his search of the upstairs rooms,
Hastings was fully awake to the necessity
of his interviewing Mrs. Brace as soon as pos-
sible. Lally, the chauffeur, drove him back to
Washington early that Sunday morning. It was
characteristic of the old man that, as they went
down the driveway, he looked back at Sloane-
hurst and felt keenly the sufferings of the people
under its roof.

He was particularly drawn to Lucille Sloane,
with whom he had had a second brief confer-
ence. While waiting for his coffee — nobody in
the house had felt like breakfast — he had taken
a chair at the southeast end of the front porch
and, pulling a piece of soft wood and a knife
from his Gargantuan coat-pockets, had fallen to
whittling and thinking. — Whittling, he often
said, enabled him to think clearly; it was to
him what tobacco was to other men.

Thus absorbed, he suddenly heard Lucille's
voice, low and tense:

48

THE INTERVIEW WITH MRS. BRACE 49

" We'll have to leave it as it was be "

Berne Webster interrupted her, a grain of bit-
terness in his words:

" Rather an unusual request, don't you
think? "

" I wanted to tell you this after the talk in
the library," she continued, " but there- "

They had approached Hastings from the south
side of the house and, hidden from him by the
verandah railing, were upon him before he could
make his presence known. Now, however, he did
so, warning them by standing up with a clam-
orous scraping of his feet on the floor. Instinc-
tively, he had recoiled from overhearing their
discussion of what was, he thought, a love-affair
topic.

Lucille hurried to him, not that she had addi-
tional information to give him, but to renew
her courage. Having called upon him for aid,
she had in the usual feminine way decided to
make her reliance upon him complete. And,
under the influence of his reassuring kindliness,
her hesitance and misgivings disappeared.

He had judged her feelings correctly during
their conference in the parlour. At dinner, she
had seen in him merely a pleasant, quiet-spoken
old man, a typical " hick " farmer, who wore
baggy, absurdly large clothing — "for the sake
of his circulation," he said — and whose appear-

50 " NO CLUE ! "

ance in no way corresponded to his reputation
as a learned psychologist and investigator of
crime. Now, however, she responded warmly to
his charm, felt the sincerity of his sympathy.

Seeing that she looked up to him, he enjoyed
encouraging her, was bound more firmly to her
interests.

" I think your fears are unfounded," he told
her.

But he did not reveal his knowledge that she
suspected her father of some connection with
the murder. In fact, he could not decide what
her suspicion was exactly, whether it was that
he had been guilty of the crime or that he had
guilty knowledge of it.

A little anxious, she had asked him to promise
that he would be back by ten o'clock, for the in-
quest. He thought he could do that, although
he had persuaded the coroner that his evidence
would not be necessary — the judge and Webster
had found the body ; their stories would establish
the essential facts.

" Why do you want me here then? " he asked,
not comprehending her uneasiness.

"For one thing," she said, "I want you to
talk to father — before the inquest. I wish yon i
could now, but he isn't up."

It was eight o'clock when Miss Davis, tele-
phone operator in the cheap apartment house

THE INTERVIEW WITH MRS. BRACE 51

on Fourteenth street known as The Walman,
took the old man's card and read the inscription,
over the wire:

"'Mr. Jefferson Hastings.'"

After a brief pause, she told him :

" She wants to know if you are a detective."

" Tell her I am."

" You may go up," the girl reported. " It's
Number Forty-three, fourth floor — no elevator."

After ascending the three flights of stairs, he
sat down on the top step, to get his breath. Mr.
Hastings was stout, not to say sebaceous — and
he proposed to begin the interview unhandi-
capped.

Mrs. Brace answered his ring. There was
nobody else in the apartment. The moment he
looked into her restless, remarkably brilliant
black eyes, he catalogued her as cold and repel-
lent.

"One of the swift-eyed kind," he thought;
" heart as hard as her head. No blood in her —
but smart. Smart ! "

He relied, without question, on his ability to
" size up " people at first glance. It was a gift
with him, like the intuition of women; and to
it, he thought, he owed his best work as a de-
tective.

Mrs. Brace, without speaking, without ac-
knowledging his quiet " Mrs. Brace, I believe? "

52 "NO CLUE!"

led him into the living room after waiting for
him to close the entrance door. This room was
unusually large, out of proportion to the rest
of the apartment which included, in addition
to the narrow entry, a bedroom, kitchen and
bath — all, so far as his observation went, sparsely
and cheaply furnished.

They sat down, and still she did not speak,
but studied his face. He got the impression that
she considered all men her enemies and sought
some intimation of what his hostility would be
like.

" I'm sorry to trouble you at such a time," he
began. " I shall be as brief as possible."

Her black eyebrows moved upward, in curious
interrogation. They were almost mephistophe-
lian, and unpleasantly noticeable, drawn thus
nearer to the wide wave of her white hair.

" You wanted to see me — about my daugh-
ter?"

Her voice was harsh, metallic, free of emo-
tion. There was nothing about her indicative
of grief. She did not look as if she had been
weeping. He could learn nothing from her man-
ner; it was extremely matter-of-fact, and chilly.
Only, in her eyes he saw suspicion — perhaps,
he reflected, suspicion was always in her
eyes.

Her composure amazed him.

THE INTERVIEW WITH MRS. BRACE 53

" Yes," he replied gently; " if I don't distress
you "

« What is it? "

She suddenly lowered her eyebrows, drew
them together until they were a straight line
at the bottom of her forehead.

Her cold self-possession made it easy, in fact
necessary, for him to deal with facts directly.
Apparently, she resented his intimated condo-
lence. He could fling any statement, however
sensational, against the wall of her indifference.
She was, he decided, as free of feeling as she
was inscrutable. She would be surprised by
emotion into nothing. It was his brain against
hers.

" I want to say first," he continued, " that my
only concern, outside of my natural and very
real sympathy with such a loss as yours must
be, is to find the man who killed her."

She moved slowly to and fro on the armless,
low-backed rocker, watching him intently.

" Will you help me? "

" If I can."

" Thank you," he said, smiling encouragement
from force of habit, not because he expected to
arouse any spirit of cooperation in her. " I
may ask you a few questions then? "

" Certainly."

Her thin nostrils dilated once, quickly, and

54 "NO CLUE!"

somehow their motion suggested the beginning
of a ridiculing smile. He went seriously to
work.

" Have you any idea, Mrs. Brace, as to whe
killed your daughter — or could have wanted to
kill her? "

" Yes."

« Who? "

She got up, without the least change of ex-
pression, without a word, and, as she crossed
the room, paused at the little table against the
farther wall to arrange more symmetrically a
pile of finger-worn periodicals. She went
through the communicating door into the bed-
room, and, from where he sat, he could see her
go through another door — into the bathroom, he
guessed. In a moment, he heard a glass clink
against a faucet. She had gone for a drink of
water, to moisten her throat, like an orator pre-
paring to deliver an address.

She came back, unhurried, imperturbable, and
sat down again in the armless rocker before she
answered his question. So far as her manner
might indicate, there had been no interruption
of the conversation.

He swept her with wondering eyes. She was
not playing a part, not concealing sorrow. The
straight, hard lines of her lean figure were a
complement to her gleaming, unrevealing eyes.

THE INTERVIEW WITH MRS. BRACE 55

There was hardness about her, and in her, every-
where.

A slow, warm breeze brought through the cur-
tainless window a disagreeable odour, sour and
fetid. The apartment was at the back of the
building; the odour came from a littered court-
yard, a conglomeration of wet ashes, neglected
garbage, little filthy pools, warmed into activity
by the sun, high enough now to touch them. He
could see the picture without looking — and that
odour struck him as excruciatingly appropriate
to this woman's soul.

" Berne Webster killed my daughter," she said
evenly, hands moveless in her lap. " There are
several reasons for my saying so. Mildred was
his stenographer for eight months, and he fell
in love with her — that was the way he described
his feeling, and intention, toward her. The
usual thing happened; he discharged her two
weeks ago.

" He wants to marry money. You know about
that, I take it — Miss Sloane, daughter of A. B.
Sloane, Sloanehurst, where she was murdered.
They're engaged. At least, that is — was Mil-
dred's information, although the engagement
hasn't been announced, formally. Fact is, he
has to marry the Sloane girl."

Her thin, mobile lips curled upward at the
ends and looked a little thicker, giving an ex-

56 " NO CLUE ! "

aggerated impression of wetness. Hastings
thought of some small, feline animal, creeping,
anticipating prey — a sort of calculating fe-
rocity.

She talked like a person bent on making every
statement perfectly clear and understandable.
There was no intimation that she was so com-
municative because she thought she was obliged
to talk. On the contrary, she welcomed the
chance to give him the story.

" Have you told all this to that sheriff, Mr.
Crown? " he inquired.

" Yes ; but he seemed to attach no importance
to it."

She coloured her words with feeling at last
— it was contempt — putting the sheriff beyond
the pale of further consideration.

" You were saying Mr. Webster had to marry
Miss Sloane. What do you mean by that, Mrs.
Brace? "

" Money reasons. He had to have money. His
bank balance is never more than a thousand dol-
lars. He's got to produce sixty-five thousand
dollars by the seventh of next September. This
is the sixteenth of July. Where is he to get all
that? He's got to marry it."

Hastings put more intensity into his scrutiny
of her smooth, untroubled face. It showed no
sudden access of hatred, no unreasoning venom,

THE INTERVIEW WITH MRS. BRACE 57

except that the general cast of her features spoke
generally of vindictiveness. She was, unmis-
takably, sure of what she said.

" How do you know that? " he asked, hiding
his surprise.

" Mildred knew it — naturally, from working in
Ms office."

" Let me be exact, Mrs. Brace. Your charge
is just what? "

He felt the need of keen thought. He reached
for his knife and piece of wood. Entirely un-
consciously, he began to whittle, letting little
shavings fall on the bare floor. She made no
sign of seeing his new occupation.

" It's plain enough, Mr. — I don't recall your
name."

" Hastings — Jefferson Hastings."

" It's plain and direct, Mr. Hastings. He
threw her over, threw Mildred over. She refused
to be dealt with in that way. He wouldn't listen
to her side, her arguments, her protests, her
pleas. She pursued him ; and last night he killed
her. I understand — Mr. Crown told me — he was
found bending over the body — it seemed to
me, caught in the very commission of the
crime."

A fleeting contortion, like mirthless ridicule,
touched her lips as she saw him, with head
lowered, cut more savagely into the piece of

58 "NO CLUE!"

wood. She noticed, and enjoyed, his dis-
may.

" That isn't quite accurate," he said, without
lifting his head. " He and another man, Judge
Wilton, stumbled — came upon your daughter's
body at the same moment."

" Was that it? " she retorted, unbelieving.

When he looked up, she was regarding him
thoughtfully, the black brows elevated, interrog-
ative. The old man felt the stirrings of physical
nausea within him. But he waited for her to
elaborate her story.

" Do you care to ask anything more? " she
inquired, impersonal as ashes.

« If I may."

" Why, certainly."

He paused in his whittling, brought forth a
huge handkerchief, passed it across his forehead,
was aware for a moment that he was working
hard against the woman's unnatural calmness,
and feeling the heat intensely. She was un-
touched by it. He whittled again, asking her:

" You a native of Washington? "

" No."

" How long have you been here? "

"About nine months. We came from Chi-
cago."

"Any friends here — have you any friends
here? "

THE INTERVIEW WITH MRS. BKACE 59

" Neither here nor elsewhere." She made that
bleak declaration simply, as if he had suggested
her possession of green diamonds. Her tone
made friendship a myth.

He felt again utterly free of the restraints
and little hesitancies usual in situations of this
nature.

"And your means, resources. Any, Mrs.
Brace? "

" None — except my daughter's."

He was unaccountably restless. Putting the
knife into his pocket, he stood up, went to the
window. His guess had been correct. The court-
yard below was as he had pictured it. He stood
there at least a full minute.

Turning suddenly in the hope of catching some
new expression on her face, he found her gazing
steadily, as if in revery, at the opposite wall.

" One thing more, Mrs. Brace : did you know
your daughter intended to go to Sloanehurst
last night? "

« No."

"Were you uneasy when she failed to come
in— last night? "

" Yes; but what could I do? "

" Had she written to Mr. Webster recently? "

"Yes; I think so."

" You think so? "

" Yes ; she went out to mail a letter night

60 "NO CLUE!"

before last. I recall that she said it was im-
portant, had to be in the box for the midnight
collection, to reach its destination yesterday
afternoon — late. I'm sure it was to Webster."

" Did you see the address on it? "

" I didn't try to."

He stepped from the window, to throw the
full glare of the morning sky on her face, which
was upturned, toward him.

" Was it in a grey envelope? "

" Yes ; an oblong, grey envelope," she said,
the impassive, unwrinkled face unmoved to either
curiosity or reticence.

With surprising swiftness he took a triangular
piece of paper from his breast pocket and held
it before her.

" Might that be the flap of that grey envel-
ope? "

She inspected it, while he kept hold of it.

"Very possibly."

Without leaving her chair, she turned and put
back the lid of a rickety little desk in the corner
immediately behind her. There, she showed him,
was a bundle of grey envelopes, the correspond-
ing paper beside it. He compared the envelope
flaps with the one he had brought. They were
identical.

Here was support of her assertion that Berne
Webster had been pursued by her daughter as

THE INTERVIEW WITH MRS. BRACE 61

late as yesterday afternoon — and, therefore,
might have been provoked into desperate action.
He had found that scrap of grey paper at Sloane-
hurst, in Webster's room.

VI

ACTION BY THE SHERIFF

MKS. BRACE did not ask Hastings where
lie had got the fragment of grey en-
velope. She made no comment what-
ever.

He reversed the flap in his hand and showed
her the inner side on which were, at first sight,
meaningless lines and little smears. He ex-
plained that the letter must have been put into
the envelope when the ink was still undried on
the part of it that came in contact with the
flap, and, the paper being of that rough-finish,
spongy kind frequently affected by women, the
flap had absorbed the undried ink pressed
against it.

" Have you a hand-mirror? " he asked, break-
ing a long pause.

She brought one from the bedroom. Holding
it before the envelope flap, he showed her the
marks thus made legible. They were, on the
first line : " — edly de— ," with the first loop or
curve of an u n " or an " m " following the

ACTION BY THE SHERIFF 63

" de " ; and on the second line the one word
" Pursuit ! " the whole reproduction being this :

edly de
Pursuit!

" Does that writing mean anything to you,
Mrs. Brace?" Hastings asked, keeping it in
front of her.

She moved her left hand, a quiet gesture indi-
cating her lack of further interest in the piece
of paper.

" Nothing special," she said, " except that the
top line seems to bear out what I've told you.
It might be : ' repeatedly demanded ' — I mean
Mildred may have written that she had re-
peatedly demanded justice of him, something of
that sort."

" Is it your daughter's writing? "

« Yes."

"And the word 'Pursuit,' with an exclama-
tion point after it? That suggest anything to
you? "

" Why, no." She showed her first curiosity :
" Where did you get that piece of envelope? " •

" Not from Berne Webster," he said, smiling.

" I suppose not," she agreed, and did not press
him for the information.

" You said," he went to another point, " that
the sheriff attached no importance to your be-

64 "NO CLUE!"

lief in Webster's guilt. Can you tell me why? "

Her contempt was frank enough now, and
visible, her lips thickening and assuming the
abnormally humid appearance he had noticed
before.

" He thinks the footsteps which Miss Sloane
says she heard are the deciding evidence. He
accuses a young man named Kussell, Eugene
Eussell, who's been attentive to Mildred."

Hastings was relieved.

" Crown's seen him, seen Russell? " he asked,
not troubling to conceal his eagerness.

On that, he saw the beginnings of wrath in
her eyes. The black eyebrows went upward,
the thin nostrils expanded, the lips set to a line
no thicker than the edge of a knife.

" You, too, will "

She broke off, checked by the ringing of the
wall telephone in the entrance hall. She an-
swered the call, moving without haste. It was
for Mr. Hastings, she said, going back to her
seat.

He regretted the interruption; it would give
her time to regain the self-control she had been
on the point of losing.

Sheriff Crown was at the other end of the
wire. He was back at Sloanehurst, he explained,
and Miss Sloane had asked him to give the de-
tective certain information:

ACTION BY THE SHERIFF 65

He had asked the Washington police to hold
Eugene Russell, or to persuade him to attend
the inquest at Sloanehurst. Crown, going in to
Washington, had stopped at the car barns of the
electric road which passed Sloanehurst, and had
found a conductor who had made the ten-thirty
run last night. This conductor, Barton, had
slept at the barns, waiting for the early-morn-
ing resumption of car service to take him to his
home across the city.

Barton remembered having seen a man leave
his car at Ridgecrest, the next stop before Sloane-
hurst, at twenty-five minutes past ten last night.
He answered Russell's description, had seemed
greatly agitated, and was unfamiliar with the
stops on the line, having questioned Barton as
to the distance between Ridgecrest and Sloane-
hurst. That was all the conductor had to tell.

" Mrs. Brace's description of Russell, a real
estate salesman who had been attentive to her
daughter," continued Crown, " tallied with Bar-
ton's description of the man who had been on
his car. I got his address from her. But say!
She don't fall for the idea that Russell's guilty !
She gave me to understand, in that snaky, frozen
way of hers, that I was a fool for thinking so.

" Anyway, I'm going to put him over the
jumps ! " The sheriff was highly elated. " What
was he out here for last night if he wasn't jealous

66 "NO CLUE!"

of the girl? Wasn't he following her? And,
when he came up with her on the Sloanehurst
lawn, didn't he kill her? It looks plain to me;
simple. I told you it was a simple case ! "

" Have you seen him? " Hastings was looking
at his watch as he spoke — it was nine o'clock.

" No ; I went to his boarding house, waked up
the place at three o'clock this morning. He
wasn't there."

Hastings asked for the number of the house.
It was on Eleventh street, Crown informed him,
and gave the number.

" I searched his room," the sheriff added, his
voice self-congratulatory.

"Find anything?"

" I should say ! The nail file was missing from
his dressing case."

"What else?"

" A pair of wet shoes — muddy and wet."

" Then, he'd returned to his room, after the
murder, and gone out again?"

" That's it— right."

" Anybody in the house hear him come in, or
go out? "

" Not a soul. — And I don't know where he is
now."

Hastings, leaving the telephone, found Mrs.
Brace carefully brushing into a newspaper the
litter made by his whittling. Her performance

ACTION BY THE SHERIFF 67

of that trivial task, the calm thoroughness with
which she went about it, or the littleness of it,
when compared with her complete indifference
to the tragedy which should have overwhelmed
her — something, he could not tell exactly what,
made her more repugnant to him than ever.

He spoke impulsively :

" Did you want— didn't you feel some impulse,
some desire, to go out there when you heard of
this murder? " »

She paused in her brushing, looking up to
him without lifting herself from hands and
knees.

" Why should I have wanted to do any such
thing? " she replied. " Mildred's not out there.
What's out there is — nothing."

" Do you know about the arrangements for
the removal of the body?"

" The sheriff told me," she replied, cold, im-
personal. " It will be brought to an undertaking
establishment as soon as the coroner's jury has
viewed it."

" Yes — at ten o'clock this morning."

She made no comment on that. He had
brought up the disagreeable topic — one which
would have been heart-breaking to any other
mother he had ever known — in the hope of arous-
ing some real feeling in her. And he had failed.
Her self-control was impregnable. There was

68 " NO CLUE ! "

about her an atmosphere that was, in a sense,
terrifying, something out of all nature.

She brushed up the remaining chips and shav-
ings while he got his hat. He was deliberating :
was there nothing more she could tell him?
What could he hope to get from her except that
which she wanted to tell? He was sure that she
had spoken, in reply to each of his questions,
according to a prearranged plan, a well designed
scheme to bring into high relief anything that
might incriminate Berne Webster.

And he was by no means in a mood to per-
suade himself of Webster's guilt. He knew the
value of first impressions; and he did not pro-
pose to let her clog his thoughts with far-fetched
deductions against the young lawyer.

She got to her feet with cat-like agility, and,
to his astonishment, burst into violent speech:

"You're standing there trying to think up
things to help Berne Webster! Like the sheriff!
Now, I'll tell you what I told him: Webster's
guilty. I know it ! He killed my daughter. He's
a liar and a coward — a traitor ! He killed her! "

There was no doubt of her emotion now. She
stood in a strange attitude, leaning a little to-
ward him in the upper part of her body, as if
all her strength were consciously directed into
her shoulders and neck. She seemed larger in
her arms and shoulders ; they, with her head and

ACTION BY THE SHERIFF 69

face, were, he thought, the most vivid part of
her — an effect which she produced deliberately,
to impress him.

Her whole body was not tremulous, but,
rather, vibrant, a taut mechanism played on by
the rage that possessed her. Her eyebrows, high
on her forehead, reminded him of things that
crawled. Her eyes, brilliant like clear ice with
sunshine on it, were darting, furtive, always in
motion.

She did not look him squarely in the eye, but
her eyes selected and bored into every part
of his face ; her glance played on his countenance.
He could easily have imagined that it burned
him physically in many places.

"All this talk about Gene Russell's being
guilty is stuff, bosh ! " she continued. " Gene
wouldn't hurt anybody. He couldn't! Wait
until you see him ! " Her lips curled momen-
tarily to their thickened, wet sneer. " There's
nothing to him — nothing! Mildred hated him;
he bored her to death. Even I laughed at him.
And this sheriff talks about the boy's having
killed her!"

Suddenly, she partially controlled her fury.
He saw her eyes contract to the gleam of a new
idea. She was silent a moment, while her
vibrant, tense body swayed in front of him al-
most imperceptibly.

70 " NO CLUE ! "

When she spoke again, it was in her flat, con-
strained tone. He was impressed anew with
her capacity for making her feeling subordinate
to her intelligence.

" She's a dangerous woman," he thought again.

" You're working for Webster? "

Her inquiry came after so slight a pause, and
it was put to him in a manner so different from
the unrestraint of her denunciation of Webster,
that he felt as he would have done if he had
been dealing with two women.

" I've told you already," he said, " my only
interest is in finding the real murderer. In that
sense, I'm working for Webster— if he's inno-
cent."

" But he didn't hire you? "

" No."

Seeing that he told the truth, she indulged
herself in rage again. It was just that, Hastings
thought; she took an actual, keen pleasure in
giving vent to the anger that was in her. Re-
lieved of the necessity of censoring her words
and thoughts closely, she could say what she
wanted to say.

" He's guilty, and I'll prove it ! " she defied
the detective's disbelief. " I'll help to prove it.
Guilty? I tell you he is— guilty as hell ! "

He made an abrupt departure, her shrill ha-
tred ringing in his ears when he reached the

ACTION BY THE SHERIFF 71

street. He found it hard, too, to get her out of
his eyes, even now — she had impressed herself
so shockingly upon him. The picture of her
floated in front of him, above the shimmering
pavement, as if he still confronted her in all
her unloveliness, the smooth, white face like a
travesty on youth, the swift, darting eyes, the
hard, straight lines of the lean figure, the cold
deliberation of manner and movement.

" She's incapable of grief ! " he thought. " Ter-
rible! She's terrible!"

Lally drove him to his apartment on Fifteenth
street, where the largest of three rooms served
him as a combination library and office. There
he kept his records, in a huge, old-fashioned
safe; and there, also, he held his conferences,
from time to time, with police chiefs and de-
tectives from all parts of the country when they
sought his help in their pursuit of criminals.

The walls were lined with books from floor
to ceiling. A large table in the centre of the
room was stacked high with newspapers and
magazines. Dusty papers and books were piled,
too, on several chairs set against the bookcases,
and on the floor in one corner was a pyramid of
documents.

" This place is like me," he explained to vis-
itors ; " it's loosely dressed."

He sat down at the table and wrote instruc-

72 "NO CLUE!"

tions for one of his two assistants, his best man,
Hendricks. Russell's room must be searched and
Russell interviewed — work for which Hastings
felt that he himself could not spare the time.
He gave Hendricks a second task: investigation
of the financial standing of two people: Berne
Webster and Mrs. Catherine Brace.

He noted, with his customary kindness, in his
memorandum to Hendricks :

" Sunday's a bad day for this sort of work,
but do the best you can. Report tomorrow
morning."

That arranged, he set out for Sloanehurst,
to keep his promise to Lucille — he would be there
for the inquest.

On the way he reviewed matters :

" Somehow, I got the idea that the Brace
woman knew Russell hadn't killed her daughter.
Funny, that is. How could she have known that?
How can she know it now?

"She's got the pivotal fact in this case. I
felt it. I'm willing to bet she persuaded her
daughter to pursue Webster. And things have
gone ' bust ' — didn't come out as she thought
they would. What was she after, money? That's
exactly it! Exactly! Her daughter could hold
up Webster, and Webster could hold up the
Sloanes after his marriage."

He whistled softly.

ACTION BY THE SHEKIFF 73

" If she can prove that Webster should have
married her daughter, that he's in need of any-
thing like sixty-five thousand dollars — where
does he get off? He gets off safely if the Braee
woman ever sees fit to tell — what? I couldn't
guess if my whittling hand depended on it." He
grimaced his repugnance.

" What a woman ! A mania for wickedness —
evil from head to foot, thoroughly. She
wouldn't stick at murder — if she thought it safe.
She'd do anything, say anything. Every word
she uttered this morning had been rehearsed in
her mind — with gestures, even. When I beat
her, I beat this puzzle; that's sure."

That he had to do with a puzzle, he had no
manner of doubt. The very circumstances sur-
rounding the discovery of the girl's body —
Arthur Sloane flashing on the light in his room
at a time when his being awake was so unusual
that it frightened his daughter; Judge Wilton
stumbling over the dead woman; young Web-
ster doing the same thing in the same instant;
the light reaching out to them at the moment
when they bent down to touch the thing which
their feet had encountered — all that shouted mys-
tery to his experienced mind.

He thought of Webster's pronouncement t
"The thug, acting on the spur of the moment,
with a blow in the dark and a getaway through

74 "NO CLUE!"

the night " Here was reproduction of that

in real life. Would people say that Webster
had given himself away in advance? They might.

And the weapon, what about that? It could
have been manufactured in ten minutes. Crown
had said over the wire that Russell's nail file
was missing. What if Webster's, too, were miss-
ing? He would see — although he expected to
uncover no such thing.

He came, then, to Lucille's astounding idea,
that her father must be " protected," because
he was nervous and, being nervous, might incur
the enmity of the authorities. He could not
take that seriously. And yet the most fruitful
imagination in the world could fabricate no mo-
tive for Arthur Sloane's killing a young woman
he had never seen.

Only Webster and Russell could be saddled
with motives : Webster's, desperation, the savage
determination to rid himself of the woman's pur-
suit ; Russell's, unreasoning jealousy.

So far as facts went, the crime lay between
those two — and he could not shake off the im-
pression that Mrs. Brace, shrilly asserting Rus-
sell's innocence, had known that she spoke the
absolute truth.

VII

THE HOSTILITY OF MR. SLOANE

DELAYED by a punctured tire, Hastings
reached Sloanehurst when the inquest
was well under way. He went into the
house by a side door and found Lucille Sloane
waiting for him.

" Won't you go to father at once? " she urged
him.

" What's the matter? " He saw that her anxi-
ety had grown during his absence.

" He's in one of his awfully nervous states.
I hope you'll be very patient with him — make
allowances. He doesn't seem to grasp the 1m-
portance of your connection with the case ; wants
to ask questions. Won't you let me take you to
him, now? "

" Why, yes, if I can be of any help. What do
you want me to say to him ? "

As a matter of fact, he was glad of the oppor-
tunity for the interview. He had long since dis-
covered the futility of inquests in the uncovering
of important evidence, and he had not intended
to sit through this one. He wanted particularly

75

76 "NO CLUE!"

to talk to Berne Webster, but Sloane also had
to be questioned.

" I thought you might explain," she continued
hurriedly, preceding him down the hall toward
her father's room, " that you will do exactly what
I asked you to do — see that the mysterious part
of this terrible affair, if there is any mystery
in it — see that it's cleared up promptly. Please
tell him you'll act for us in dealing with news-
paper reporters; that you'll help us, not annoy
us, not annoy him."

She had stopped at Sloane's door.

" And you? " Hastings delayed her knock.
" If they want you to testify, if Dr. Garnet calls
for you, I think you'd better testify very frankly,
tell them about the footsteps you heard."

"I've already done that." She seemed em-
barrassed. "Father asked me to 'phone Mr.
Southard, Mr. Jeremy Southard, his lawyer,
about it. I know I told you I wanted your
advice about everything. I would have waited
to ask you. But you were late. I had to take
Mr. Southard's advice."

" That's perfectly all right," he reassured her.
"Mr. Southard advised you wisely. — Now, I'm
going to ask your help. The guest-rooms up-
stairs— have the servants straightened them up
this morning? "

They had not, she told him. Excitement had

THE HOSTILITY OF MR. SLOANE 77

quite destroyed their efficiency for the time be-
ing; they were at the parlour windows, listen-
ing, or waiting to be examined by the coroner.

" That's what I hoped," he said. " Won't you
see that those rooms are left exactly as they are
until I can have a look at them ? " She nodded
assent. "And say nothing about my speaking
of it — absolutely nothing to anybody? It's
vitally important."

The door was opened by Sloane's man, Jarvis,
who had in queer combination, Hastings thought,
the salient aspects of an undertaker and an ex-
perienced pick-pocket. He was dismal of coun-
tenance and alert in movement, an efficient ghost,
admirably appropriate to the twilit gloom of the
room with its heavily shaded windows.

Mr. Sloane was in bed, in the darkest corner.

" Father," Lucille addressed him from the
door-sill, " I've asked Mr. Hastings to talk to
you about things. He's just back from Wash-
ington."

" Shuddering saints ! " said Mr. Sloane, not
lifting his head from the pillows.

Lucille departed. The ghostly Jarvis closed
the door without so much as a click of the latch.
Hastings advanced slowly toward the bed, his
eyes not yet accustomed to the darkness.

" Shuddering, shivering, shaking saints ! " Mr.
Sloane exclaimed again, the words coming in a

78 "NO CLUE!"

slow, shrill tenor from his lips, as if with great
exertion he reached up with something and
pushed each one out of his mouth. " Sit down,
Mr. Hastings, if I can control my nerves, and
stand it. What is it? '_'

His hostility to the caller was obvious. The
evident and grateful interest with which the
night before he had heard the detective's stories
of crimes and criminals had changed now to
annoyance at the very sight of him. As a
raconteur, Mr. Hastings was quite the thing;
as protector of the Sloane family's privacy and
seclusion, he was a nuisance. Such was the im-
pression Mr. Hastings received.

At a loss to understand his host's frame of
mind, he took a chair near the bed.

Mr. Sloane stirred jerkily under his thin sum-
mer coverings.

"A little light, Jarvis," he said peevishly.
"Now, Mr. Hastings, what can I do for — tell
you?"

Jarvis put back a curtain.

" Quivering and crucified martyrs ! " the pros-
trate man burst forth. " I said a little, Jarvis !
You drown my optic nerves in ink and, without
a moment's warning, flood them with the glaring
brilliancy of the noonday sun ! " Jarvis half-
drew the curtain. "Ah, that's better. Never
more than an inch at a time, Jarvis. How many

THE HOSTILITY OF MR. SLOANE 79

times have I told you that? Never give me a
shock like that again; never more than an inch
of light at a time. Frantic fiends! From cim-
merian, abysmal darkness to Sahara-desert
glare!"

" Yes, sir," said Jarvis, as if on the point of
digging a grave — for himself. " Beg pardon,
sir."

He effaced himself, in shadows, somewhere
behind Hastings, who seized the opportunity to

" Miss Sloane suggested that you wanted cer-
tain information. In fact, she asked me to see
you."

"My daughter? Oh, yes!" The prone body
became semi-upright, leaned on an elbow. " Yes !
What I want to know is, why — why, in the name
of all the jumping angels, everybody seems to
think there's a lot of mystery connected with
this brutal, vulgar, dastardly crime! It passes
my comprehension, utterly! — Jarvis, stop click-
ing your finger-nails together ! " This with a
note of exaggerated pleading. " You know I'm
a nervous wreck, a total loss physically, and yet
you stand there in the corner and indulge your-
self wickedly, wickedly, in that infernal habit
of yours of clicking your finger-nails ! Mute and
mutilated Christian martyrs ! "

He fell back among the pillows, breathing

80 "NO CLUE!"

heavily, the perfect picture of exhaustion. Jar-
vis came near on soundless feet and applied a
wet cloth to his master's temples.

The old man regarded them both with uncon-
cealed amazement.

"You'll have to excuse me, Mr. Hastings,
really, I can't be annoyed ! " the wreck, somewhat
revived, announced feebly. "All I said to my
daughter, Miss Sloane, is what I say to you now :
I see no reason why we should employ you, or
indeed why you should be connected with this
affair. You were my guest, here, at Sloanehurst.
Unfortunately, some ruffian of whom we never
heard, whose existence we never suspected — Jar-
vis, take off this counterpane; you're boiling me,
parboiling nae; my nerves are seething, simmer-
ing, stewing! Athletic devils! Have you no
discrimination, Jarvis? — as I was saying, Mr.
Hastings, somebody stabbed somebody else to
death on my lawn, unfortunately marring your
visit. But that's all. I can't see that we need
you — thank you, nevertheless."

The dismissal was unequivocal. Hastings got
to his feet, his indignation all the greater through
realization that he had been sent for merely to
be flouted. And yet, this man's daughter had
come to him literally with tears in her eyes,
had begged him to help her, had said that money
was the smallest of considerations. Moreover,

THE HOSTILITY OF MR. SLOANE 81

he had accepted her employment, had made the
definite agreement and promise. Apparently,
Sloane was in no condition to act independently,
and his daughter had known it, had hoped that
he, Hastings, might soothe his silly mind, do
away with his objections to assistance which
she knew he needed.

There was, also, the fact that Lucille believed
her father unaccountably interested, if not im-
plicated, in the crime. He could not get away
from that impression. He was sure he had
interpreted correctly the girl's anxiety the night
before. She was working to save her father —
from something. And she believed Berne Web-
ster innocent.

These were some of the considerations which,
flashing through his mind, prevented his giving
way to righteous wrath. He most certainly
would not allow Arthur Sloane to eliminate him
from the situation. He sat down again.

The nervous wreck made himself more under-
standable.

" Perhaps, Jarvis," he said, shrinking to one
side like a man in sudden pain, " the gentleman
can't see how to reach that large door. A little
more light, half an inch — not a fraction more ! "

" Don't bother," Hastings told Jarvis. " I'm
not going quite yet."

" Leaping crime ! " moaned Mr. Sloane, dig-

82 "NO CLUE!"

ging deeper into the pillows. "Frantic
imps!"

" I hope I won't distress yon too much," the
detective apologized grimly, " if I ask you a few
questions. Fact is, I must. I'm investigating
the circumstances surrounding what may turn
out to be a baffling crime, and, irrespective of
your personal wishes, Mr. Sloane, I can't let go
of it. This is a serious business "

The sick man sat up in bed with surprising
abruptness.

" Serious business ! Serious saints ! — Jarvis,
the eau de cologne! — You think I don't know
it? They make a slaughter-house of my lawn.
They make a morgue of my house. They hold
a coroner's inquest in my parlour. They're in
there now — live people like ravens, and one dead
one. They cheat the undertaker to plague me.
They wreck me all over again. They give me
a new exhaustion of the nerves. They frighten
my daughter to death. — Jarvis, the smelling
salts. Shattered saints, Jarvis! Hurry!
Thanks. — They rig up lies which, Tom Wilton,
my old and trusted friend, tells me, will incrimi-
nate Berne Webster. They sit around a corpse
in my house and chatter by the hour. You come
in here and make Jarvis nearly blind me.

"And, then, then, by the holy, agile angels!
you think you have to persuade me it's a serious

THE HOSTILITY OF ME. SLOANE 83

business ! Never fear ! I know it ! — Jarvis, the
bromide, quick ! Before I know it, they'll drive
me to opiates. — Serious business! Shrivelled
and shrinking saints ! "

Arms clasped around his legs, knees pressed
against his chin, Mr. Sloane trembled and shook
until Jarvis, more agile than the angels of whom
his employer had spoken, gave him the dose of
bromides.

Still, Mr. Hastings did not retire.

" I was going to say," he resumed, in a tone
devoid of compassion, " I couldn't drop this
thing now. I may be able to find the murderer ;
and you may be able to help me."

"I?"

" Yes."

" Isn't it Russell? He's among the ravens
now, in my parlour. Wilton told me the sheriff
was certain Russell was the man. Murdered
martyrs! Sacrificed saints! Can't you let a
guilty man hang when he comes forward and
puts the rope around his own worthless neck? "

" If Russell's guilty," Hastings said, glad of
the information that the accused man was then
at Sloanehurst, " I hope we can develop the nec-
essary evidence against him. But "

" The necessary "

"Let me finish, Mr. Sloane, if you please! "
The old man was determined to disregard the

84 « NO CLUE ! "

other's signs of suffering. He did not believe
that they were anything but assumed, the exag-
gerated camouflage which he usually employed
as an excuse for idleness. " But, if Russell isn't
guilty, there are facts which may help me to
find the murderer. And you may have valuable
information concerning them."

" Sobbing, sorrowing saints ! " lamented Mr.
Sloane, but his trembling ceased; he was closely
attentive. " A cigarette, Jarvis, a cigarette !
Nerves will be served. — I suppose the easiest way
is to submit. Go on."

" I shall ask you only two or three questions,"
Hastings said.

The jackknife-like figure in the bed shuddered
its repugnance.

" I've been told, Mr. Sloane, that Mr. Webster
has been in great need of money, as much as
sixty-five thousand dollars. In fact, according
to my information, he needs it now."

"Well, did he kill the woman, expecting to
find it in her stocking? "

" The significance of his being hard-pressed,
for so large an amount," the old man went on,
ignoring the sarcasm, " is in the further charge
that Miss Brace was trying to make him marry
her, that he should have married her, that he
killed her in order to be free to marry your
daughter — for money."

THE HOSTILITY OF MR. SLOANE 85

" My daughter ! For money ! " shrilled
Sloane, neck elongated, head thrust forward,
eyes bulging. " Leaping and whistling cheru-
bim ! " For all his outward agitation, he seemed
to Hastings in thorough command of his logical
faculties; it was more than possible, the detec-
tive thought, that the expletives were time-killers,
until he could decide what to say. " It's ridicu-
lous, absurd! Why, sir, you reason as loosely
as you dress! Are you trying to prostrate me
further with impossible theories? Webster
marry my daughter for money, for sixty-five
thousand dollars? He knows I'd let him have
any amount he wanted. I'd give him the money
if it meant his peace of mind and Lucille's hap-
piness.— Dumb and dancing devils! Jarvis,
a little whiskey! I'm worn out, worn
out!"

" Did you ever tell Mr. Webster of the ex-
tent of your generous feeling toward him, Mr.
Sloane — in dollars and cents? "

" No ; it wasn't necessary. He knows how
fond of him I am."

" And you would let him have sixty-five thou-
sand dollars — if he had to have it? "

" I would, sir ! — today, this morning."

" Now, one other thing, Mr. Sloane, and I'm
through. It's barely possible that there was
some connection between this murder and a let-

86 "NO CLUE!"

ter which came to Sloanehurst yesterday after-
noon, a letter in an oblong grey envelope.
Did "

The nervous man went to pieces again, beat
with his open palms on the bed covering.

" Starved and stoned evangels, Jarvis ! Quit
balling your feet! You stand there and see me
harassed to the point of extinction by a lot of
crazy queries, and you indulge yourself in that
infernal weakness of yours of balling your feet !
Leaping angels ! You know how acute my hear-
ing is ; you know the noise of your sock against
the sole of your shoe when you ball your feet
is the most exquisite torture to me! A little
whiskey, Jarvis ! Quick ! " He spoke now in a
weak, almost inaudible voice to Hastings : " No ;
I got no such letter. I saw no such letter." He
sank slowly back to a prone posture.

" I was going to remind you," the detective
continued, " that I brought the five o'clock mail
in. Getting off the car, I met the rural carrier ;
he asked me to bring in the mail, saving him
the few steps to your box. All there was con-
sisted of a newspaper and one letter. I recall
the shape and colour of the envelope — oblong,
grey. I did not, of course, look at the address.
I handed the mail to you when you met me
on the porch."

Mr. Sloane, raising himself on one elbow to

THE HOSTILITY OF MR. SLOANE 87

take the restoring drink from Jarvis, looked
across the glass at his cross-examiner.

" I put the mail in the basket on the hall
table," he said in high-keyed endeavour to ex-
press withering contempt. " If it had been for
me, Jarvis would have brought it to me later.
I seldom carry my reading glasses about the
house with me."

Hastings, subjecting the pallid Jarvis to severe
scrutiny, asked him:

" Was that grey letter addressed to — whom? "

" I didn't see it," replied Jarvis, scarcely
polite.

" And yet, it's your business to inspect and
deliver the household's mail? "

"Yes, sir."

"What became of it, then — the grey envel-
ope? "

" I'm sure I can't say, sir, unless some one
got it before I reached the mail basket."

Hastings stood up. Interrogation of both mas-
ter and man had given him nothing save the
inescapable conviction that both of them re-
sented his questioning and would do nothing to
help him. The reason for this opposition he
could not grasp, but it was a fact, challenging
his analysis. Arthur Sloan e rejected his prof-
fered help in the pursuit of the man who had
brought murder to the doors of Sloanehurst.

88 "NO CLUE!"

Why? Was this his method of hiding facts in
his possession?

Hastings questioned him again:

" Your waking up at that unusual hour last
night — was it because of a noise outside? "

The neurasthenic, once more recumbent, suc-
ceeded in voicing faint denial of having heard
any noises, outside or inside. Nor had he been
aware of the murder until called by Judge Wil-
ton. He had turned on his light to find the
smelling-salts which, for the first time in six
years, Jarvis had failed to leave on his bed-table,
—terrible and ill-trained apes! Couldn't he be
left in peace?

The hall door opened, admitting Judge Wil-
ton. The newcomer, with a word of greeting
to Hastings, sat down on the bedside and put
a hand on Sloane's shoulder.

Hastings turned to leave the room.

"Any news? " the judge asked him.

" I've just been asking Mr. Sloane that," Hast-
ings said, in a tone that made Wilton look
swiftly at his friend's face.

" I told Arthur this morning," he said, " how
lucky he was that you'd promised Lucille to go
into this thing."

"Apparently," Hastings retorted drily, "he's
unconvinced of the extent of his good for-
tune."

THE HOSTILITY OF MB. SLOANE 89

Mr. Sloane, quivering from head to foot,
mourned softly : " Unfathomable fate ! "

Wilton, his rugged features softening to frank
amusement, stared a moment in silence at
Sloane's thin face, at the deeply lined forehead
topped by stringy grey hair.

" See here, Arthur," he protested, nodding
Hastings an invitation to remain ; " you know as
much about crime as Hastings and I. If you've
thought about this murder at all, you must see
what it is. If Russell isn't guilty — if he's not the
man, that crime was committed shrewdly, with
forethought. And it was a devilish thing — dev-
ilish ! "

" Well, what of it? " Sloane protested shrilly,
not opening his eyes.

" Take my advice. Quit antagonizing Mr.
Hastings. Be thankful that he's here, that he's
promised to run down the guilty man."

Mr. Sloane turned his face to the wall.

"A little whiskey, Jarvis," he said softly.
" I'm exhausted, Tom. Leave me alone."

Wilton waved his hand, indicative of the futil-
ity of further argument.

"Judge," announced Hastings, at the door,
" I'll ask you a question I put to Mr. Sloane.
Did you receive, or see, a letter in an oblong,
grey envelope in yesterday afternoon's
mail?"

90 "NO CLUE!"

" No. I never get any mail while I'm here
for a week-end."

Wilton followed the detective into the hall.

" I hope yon're not going to give up the case,
Hastings. You won't pay any attention to
Arthur's unreasonable attitude, will you? "

" I don't know," Hastings said, still indignant.
" I made my bargain with his daughter. I'll see
her."

" If you can't manage any other way, I — or
she — will get any information you want from
Arthur."

" I hope to keep on. It's a big thing, I think."
The old man was again intent on solving the
problem. " Tell me, judge; do you think Berne
Webster's guilty?" Seeing the judge's hesi-
tance, he supplemented : " I mean, did you no-
tice anything last night, in his conduct, that
would indicate guilt — or fear? "

Later, when other developments gave this
scene immense importance, Hastings, in review-
ing it, remembered the curious little flicker of
the judge's eyelids preceding his reply.

" Absolutely not," he declared, with emphasis.
" Are you working on that " — he hesitated hardly
perceptibly — " idea? "

VIII

THE MAN WHO RAN AWAY

ANCESTORS of the old family from whom
Arthur Sloane had purchased this colonial
mansion eight years ago still looked out
of their gilded frames on the parlour walls, their
high-bred calm undisturbed, their aristocratic
eyes unwidened, by the chatter and clatter of
the strangers within their gates. Hastings no-
ticed that even the mob and mouthing of a
coroner's inquest failed to destroy the ancient
atmosphere and charm of the great room. He
smiled. The pictured grandeur of a bygone
age, the brocaded mahogany chairs, the tall
French mirrors — all these made an incongruous
setting for the harsh machinery of crime-in-
quiry.

The detective had completed his second and
more detailed search of the guest-rooms in time
to hear the words and study the face of the
last witness on Dr. Garnet's list. That was
Eugene Russell.

" One of life's persimmons — long before
frost! " Hastings thought, making swift ap-

91

92 " NO CLUE ! "

praisal. "A boneless spine — chin like a sheep
— brave as a lamb."

Russell could not conceal his agitation. In
fact, he referred to it. Fear, he explained in a
low, husky voice to the coroner and the jury,
was not a part of his emotions. His only feeling
was sorrow, varied now and then by the embar-
rassment he felt as a result of the purely per-
sonal and very intimate facts which he had to
reveal.

His one desire was to be frank, he declared,
his pale blue eyes roving from place to place,
his nervous fingers incessantly playing with his
thin, uncertain lips. This mania for truthful-
ness, he asserted, was natural, in that it offered
him the one sure path to freedom and the es-
tablishment of his innocence of all connection
with the murder of the woman he had loved.

He was, he testified, thirty-one years old, a
clerk in a real-estate dealer's office and a native
of Washington. Mildred Brace had been em-
ployed for a few weeks by the same firm for
which he worked, and it was there that he had
met her. Although she had refused to marry
him on the ground that his salary was inade-
quate for the needs of two people, she had en-
couraged his attentions. Sometimes, they had
quarrelled.

" Speak up, Mr. Russell ! " Dr. Garnet di-

THE MAN WHO RAN AWAY 93

rected. " And take your time. Let the jury
hear every word you utter."

After that, the witness abandoned his attempt
to exclude the family portraits from his confi-
dence, but his voice shook.

" Conductor Barton is right," he said, re-
sponding to the coroner's interrogation. " I did
come out on his car, the car that gets to the
Sloanehurst stop at ten-thirty, and I did leave
the car at the Ridgecrest stop, a quarter of a
mile from here. I was following Mil — Miss
Brace. I saw her leave her apartment house,
the Walman. I followed her to the transfer sta-
tion at the bridge, and I saw her take the car
there. I followed on the next car. I knew where
she was going, knew she was going to Sloane-
hurst."

" How did you know that, Mr. Russell? "

" I mean I was certain of it. She'd told me
Mr. Berne Webster, the lawyer she'd been work-
ing for, was out here spending the week-end;
and I knew she was coming out to meet him."

" Why did she do that? "

Mr. Russell displayed pathetic embarrass-
ment and confusion before he answered that. He
plucked at his lower lip with spasmodic fingers.
His eyes were downcast. He attempted a self-
deprecatory smile which ended in an unpleasant
grimace.

94 "NO CLUE!"

" She wouldn't say. But it was because she
was in love with him."

" And you were jealous of Mr. Webster? "

" We-e1! — yes, sir; that's about it, I guess."

" Did Miss Brace tell you she was coming to
Sloanehurst? "

" No, sir. I suspected it."

" And watched her movements? "

" Yes, sir."

" And followed her? "

" Yes."

"Why did you think she was in love with
Mr. Webster, Mr. Russell? And please give
us a direct answer. You can understand
the importance of what you're about to
say."

" I do. I thought so because she had told me
that he was in love with her, and because of
her grief and anger when he dismissed her from
his office. And she did everything to make me
think so, except declaring it outright. She did
that because she knew I hated to think she was
in love with him."

"All right, Mr. Russell. Now, tell us what
happened during your — ah — shadowing Miss
Brace the night she was killed."

" I got off the car at Ridgecrest and walked
toward Sloanehurst. It was raining then, pretty
hard. I thought she had made an appointment

THE MAN WHO RAN AWAY 95

to meet Mr. Webster somewhere in the grounds
here. It was a quarter to eleven when I got to
the little side-gate that opens on the lawn out
there on the north side of the house."

" How did you know that? "

" I looked at mv watch then. It's got a lumi-
nous dial."

"You were then at the gate near where she
was found, dead? "

" Yes. And she was at the gate."

" Oh ! So you saw her? "

" I saw her. When I lifted the latch of the
gate, she came toward me. There was a heavy
drizzle then. I thought she had been leaning on
the fence a few feet away. She whispered, sharp
and quick, ' Who's that? ' I knew who she was,
right off. I said, < Gene.'

" She caught hold of my arm and shook it.
She told me, still whispering, if I didn't get
away from there, if I didn't go back to town,
she'd raise an alarm, accuse me of trying to kill
her — or she'd kill me. She pressed something
against my cheek. It felt like a knife, although
I couldn't see, for the darkness."

The witness paused and licked his dry lips.
He was breathing fast, and his restless eyes had
a hunted look. The people in the room leaned
farther toward him, some believing, some doubt-
ing him.

96 "NO CLUE!"

Hastings thought : " He's scared stiff, but tell-
ing the truth — so far."

"All right; what next?" asked Dr. Garnet,
involuntarily lowering his voice to Russell's
tone.

" I accused her of having an appointment to
meet Webster there. I got mad. I hate to have
to tell all this, gentlemen; but I want to tell
the truth. I told her she was a fool to run after
a man who'd thrown her over.

" ' It's none of your look-out what I do ! ' she
told me. ' You get away from here, now — this
minute ! You'll be sorry if you don't ! ' There
was something about her that frightened me,
mad as I was. I'd never seen her like that
before."

" What do you mean? " Garnet urged him.

" I thought she would kill me, or somebody
else would, and she knew it. I got the idea
that she was like a crazy woman, out of her
head about Webster, ready to do anything des-
perate, anything wild. I can't explain it any
better than that."

" And did you leave her? "

" Yes, sir."

" At once? "

"Practically. A sort of panic got hold of
me. I can't explain it, really."

Russell, seeking an illuminative phrase, gave

THE MAN WHO RAN AWAY 97

vent to a long-drawn, anxious sigh. He ap-
peared to feel no shame for his flight. His fear
was that he would not be believed.

" Just as she told me a second time to leave
her, I thought I heard somebody coming to-
ward us, a slushy, dull sound, like heavy foot-
steps on the wet grass. Mildred's manner, her
voice, had already scared me.

" When I heard those footsteps, I turned and
ran. My heart was in my mouth. I ran out
to the road and back toward Washington. I ran
as fast as I could. Twice I fell on my hands
and knees. I can't tell you exactly how it was,
why it was. I just knew something terrible
would happen if I stayed there. I never had
a feeling like that before. I was more afraid
of her than I was of the man coming toward
us."

Members of the jury pushed back their chairs,
were audible with subdued exclamations and
long breaths, relieved of the nervous tension to
which Russell's story of the encounter at the
gate had lifted them. They were, however,
prejudiced against him, a fact which he grasped.

One of them asked him:

" Can you tell us why you followed her out
here? "

" Why? " Russell echoed, like a man seeking
time for deliberation.

98 " NO CLUE ! "

"Yes. What did you think you'd do after
you'd overtaken her? "

" Persuade her to go back home with me. I
wanted to save her from doing anything foolish
— anything like that, you know."

" But, from what you've told us here this
morning, it seems you never had much influence
on her behaviour. Isn't that true? "

" I suppose it is. — But," Russell added eagerly,
" I can prove I had no idea of hurting her, if
that's what you're hinting at. I can prove I
never struck her. At twenty minutes past eleven
last night I was four miles from here. Mr.
Otis, a Washington commission merchant, picked
me up in his automobile, six miles outside of
Washington and took me into town. I couldn't
have made that four miles on foot, no matter
how I ran, in approximately fifteen or twenty
minutes.

" It's been proved that she was struck down
after eleven anyway. — You said the condition
of the body showed that, doctor. — You see, I
would have had to make the four miles in less
than twenty minutes — an impossibility. You
see?"

His eagerness to win their confidence put a
disagreeable note, almost a whimper, into his
voice. It grated on Dr. Garnet.

It affected Hastings more definitely.

THE MAN WHO RAN AWAY 99

" Now," he decided, " he's lying — about some-
thing. But what? " He noted a change in Rus-
sell's face, a suggestion of craftiness, the merest
shadow of slyness over his general attitude of
anxiety. And yet, this part of his story seemed
straight enough.

Dr. Garnet's next question brought out the
fact that it would be corroborated.

"This Mr. Otis, Mr. Russell; where is
he?"

" Right there, by the window," the witness an-
swered, with a smug smile which gave him a
still more unprepossessing look.

Jury and spectators turned toward the man
at the window. They saw a clean-shaven, alert-
looking person of middle age, who nodded
slightly in Russell's direction as if endorsing
his testimony. There seemed no possible
grounds for doubting whatever Otis might say.
Hastings at once accepted him as genuine, an
opinion which, it was obvious, was shared by
the rest of the assemblage.

Russell sensed the change of sentiment toward
himself. Until now, it had been a certainty that
he would be held for the murder. But his pro-
ducing an outsider, incontestably a trustworthy
man, to establish the truth of his statement that
he had been four miles away from the scene
of the crime a quarter of an hour after it had

100 " NO CLUE ! "

been committed — that was something in his fa-
vour which could not be gainsaid.
. Granting even that he had had an automobile
at his disposal — a supposition for which there
was no foundation — his alibi would still have
been good, in view of the rain and the fact that
one of the four miles in question was " dirt
road."

With the realization of this, the jury swung
back to the animus it had felt against Webster,
the incredulity with which it had received his
statement that there had been between him and
the dead woman no closer relationship than that
of employer and employe.

Webster, seated near the wall furthest from
the jury, felt the inquiry of many eyes upon
him, but he was unmoved, kept his gaze on Rus-
sell.

Dr. Garnet, announcing that he would ask
Mr. Otis to testify a little later, handed Russell
the weapon with which Mildred Brace had been
murdered.

" Have you ever seen that dagger before? "
he asked.

Russell said he had not. Reminded that Sheriff
Crown had testified to searching the witness's
room and had discovered that a nail file was
missing from his dressing case, a file which,
judging by other articles in the case, must have

THE MAN WHO RAN AWAY 101

been the same size as the one used in making
the amateur dagger, Kussell declared that his
file had been lost for three years. He had left
it in a hotel room on the only trip he had ever
taken to New York.

He gave way to Mr. Otis, who described him-
self as a commission merchant of Washington.
Returning from a tour to Lynchburg, Virginia,
he said, he had been hailed last night by a man
in the road and had agreed to take him into
town, a ride of six miles. Reaching Washington
shortly before midnight, he had dropped his pas-
senger at Eleventh and F streets.

" Who was this passenger? " inquired Garnet.

" He told me," said Otis, " his name was Eu-
gene Russell. I gave him my name. That ex-
plains how he was able to find me this morning.
W^hen he told me how he was situated, I agreed
to come over here and give you gentlemen the
facts."

" Notice anything peculiar about Mr. Russell
last night? "

"No; I think not."

" Was he agitated, disturbed? "

" He was out of breath. And he commented
on that himself, said he'd been walking fast.
Oh, yes ! He was bareheaded ; and he explained
that — said the rain had ruined a cheap straw
hat he had been wearing; the glue had run out

102 "NO CLUE!"

of the straw and down his neck, he had thrown
the hat away."

"And the time? When did you pick him
up?"

" It was twenty minutes past eleven o'clock.
When I stopped, I glanced at my machine clock ;
I carry a clock just above my speedometer."

Mr. Otis was positive in his statements. He
realized, he said, that his words might relieve
one man of suspicion and bring it upon another.
Unless he had been absolutely certain of his
facts, he would not have stated them. He was
sure, beyond the possibility of doubt, that he
had made no mistake when he looked at his
automobile clock; it was running when he
stopped and when he reached Washington; yes,
it was an accurate timepiece.

Russell's alibi was established. His defence
appealed to the jurymen as unassailable. When,
after a conference of less than half an hour, they
brought in a verdict that Mildred Brace had been
murdered by a thrust of the " nail-file dagger "
in the hands of a person unknown, nobody in
the room was surprised.

And nobody was blind to the fact that the free-
ing of Eugene Russell seriously questioned the
innocence of Berne Webster.

IX

THE BREAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER

HASTINGS, sprawling comfortably in a
low chair by the south window in the
music room, stopped his whittling when
Berne Webster came in with Judge Wilton.
" Meddlesome Mike ! " thought the detective.
" I sent for Webster."

" Berne asked me to come with him," the judge
explained his presence at once. " We've talked
things over ; he thought I might help him bring
out every detail — jog his memory, if necessary."

Hastings did not protest the arrangement. He
saw, almost immediately, that Webster had come
with no intention of giving him hearty coopera-
tion. The motive for this lack of frankness he
could not determine. It was enough that he
felt the younger man's veiled antagonism and
appreciated the fact that Wilton accompanied
him in the role of protector.

"If I'm to get anything worth while out of
this talk," he decided, " I've got to mix up my
delivery, shuffle the cards, spring first one thing
and then another at him — bewilder him."

103

104 "NO CLUE!"

He proceeded with that definite design : at an
opportune time, he would guide the narrative,
take it out of Webster's hands, and find out
what he wanted to know, not merely what the
young lawyer wanted to tell. He recognized the
necessity of breaking down the shell of self-con-
trol that overlaid the suspected man's uneasi-

That it was only a shell, he felt sure. Web-
ster, leaning an elbow lightly on the piano,
looked down at him out of anxious eyes, and
continually passed his right hand over his
smooth, dark-brown hair from forehead to crown,
a mechanical gesture of his when perplexed.

His smile, too, was forced, hardly more than
a slight, fixed twist of the lips, as if he strove
to advertise hib ability to laugh at danger. His
customary dash, a pleasing levity of manner, was
gone, giving place to a suggestion of strain, so
that he seemed always on the alert against him-
self, determined to edit in advance his answer
to every question.

Wilton had chosen a chair which placed him
directly opposite Hastings and at the same time
enabled him to watch Webster. He was smok-
ing a cigar, and, through the haze that floated
up just then from his lips, he gave the detective
a long, searching look, to which Hastings paid
no attention.

THE BREAKING DOWN OP WEBSTER 105

Webster talked nearly twenty minutes, ex-
plaining his eagerness to be " thoroughly frank
as to every detail," reviewing the evidence
brought out by the inquest, and criticising the
action of the jury, but producing nothing new.
Occasionally he left the piano and paced the
floor, smoking interminably, lighting the fresh
cigarette from the stub of the old, obviously
strung to the limit of his nervous strength.
Hastings detected a little twitching of the mus-
cles at the corners of his mouth, and the too
frequent winking of his eyes.

Judge Wilton had told him, Webster con-
tinued, of Mrs. Brace's charge that he wanted
to marry Miss Sloane because of financial pres-
sure; there was not a word of truth in it; he
had already arranged for a loan to make that
payment when it fell due. He was, however,
aware of his unenviable position, and he wanted
to give the detective every assistance possible,
in that way assuring his own prompt relief from
embarrassment.

By this time, Hastings had mapped out his
line of questioning, his assault on Webster's reti-
cence.

"That's the right idea! " he said, getting to
his feet. " Let's go to work."

They saw the change in him. Instead of the
genial, drawling, slow-moving old fellow who

106 "NO CLUE!"

had seemed thankful for anything he might
chance to hear, they were confronted now by
an aroused, quick-thinking man whose words
came from him with a sharp, clipped-off effect,
and whose questions scouted the whole field of
their possible and probable information. He
stood leaning his elbows- on the other end of the
piano, facing Webster across the polished length
of its broad top. His dominance of the night
before, in the library, had returned.

"Now, Mr. Webster," he began, innocent of
threat, " as things stack up at present, only two
people had the semblance of a motive for killing
Mildred Brace — either Eugene Kussell killed her
out of jealousy of you ; or you killed her to
silence her demands. Do you see that?"

He had put back his head a little and was
peering at Webster under his spectacle-rims,
down the line of his nose. He saw how the other
fought down the impulse to deny, hesitating be-
fore answering, with a laugh on a high note, like
derision :

" I suppose that's what a lot of people will
say."

" Precisely. Now, I've just had a talk with
this Russell — caught him after the inquest. I
believe there's something rotten about that alibi
of his; but I couldn't shake him; and the Otis
testimony's sound. So we'll have to quit count'

THE BREAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER 107

ing on Russell's proving his own guilt. We've
got that little job on our hands, and the best
way to handle it is to prove your jnnocence.
See that? "

The bow with which Webster acknowledged
this statement was a curious mingling of grace
and mockery. The detective ignored it.

" And," he continued, " there's only one way
for you to come whole out of this muddle —
frankness. I'm working for you; you know
that. Tell me everything you know, and we've
got a chance to win. The innocent man who
tries to twist black into white is an innocent
fool." He looked swiftly to Wilton, who was
leaning far back in his chair, head lolling slowly
from side to side, the picture of indifference.
" Isn't that so, judge? "

" Quite," Wilton agreed, pausing to remove
his cigar from his mouth.

"Of course, it's so," Webster said curtly.
" I've just told you so. That's why I've decided
— the judge and I have talked it over — to give
you something in confidence."

" One moment ! " Hastings warned him.
" Maybe, I won't take it in confidence — if it's
something incriminating you."

"Yes; you've phrased that unfortunately,
Berne," the judge put in, tilting his head on
the chair-back to meet the detective's look.

108 "NO CLUE!"

Webster was nonplussed. Apparently, his sur-
prise came from the judge's remark rather than
from the detective's refusal to assume the rdle
of confidant. Hastings inferred that Wilton,
agreeing beforehand to the proposal being ad-
vanced, had changed his mind after entering the
room.

" Hastings is right," the judge concluded ;
" even if he's on your side, you can't expect him
to be tied up blind that way by a suspected man
— and you're just that, Berne."

Seeing Webster's uncertainty, Hastings took
another course.

" I think I know what you're talking about,
Mr. Webster," he said, matter-of-fact. "Your
nail-file's missing from your dressing case — dis-
appeared since yesterday morning."

" You know that ! " Berne flashed, suddenly
angry. " And you're holding it over me ! "

Open hostility was in every feature of his
face; his lips twitched to the sharp intake of
his breath.

"Why don't you look at it another way?"
the old man countered quickly. " If I'd told
the coroner about it — if I'd told him also that
the size of that nail-file, judging from the rest
of the dressing case, matched that of the one
used for the blade of the dagger, matched it as
well as Russell's — what then? "

THE BREAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER 109

" He's right, Berne," Wilton cautioned again.
" He's taken the friendly course."

" I understand that, judge," Berne said ; and,
without answering Hastings, turned squarely to
Wilton : " But it's a thin clue. He admits Rus-
sell lost a nail-file, too."

" Several years ago," Hastings goaded, so that
Webster pivoted on his heel to face him ; " you
lost yours when? — last night? — this morning?"

" I don't know ! I noticed its absence this
morning."

" There you are ! — But," Hastings qualified, to
avoid the quarrel, " the nail-file isn't much of a
clue if unsupported." He approached cordiality.
"And I appreciate your intending to tell me.
That was what you intended to give me in con-
fidence, wasn't it? "

"Yes," Webster answered, half -sullen.

Hastings changed the subject again.

" Did you know Mildred Brace intended to
clear out, leave Washington, today? "

" Why, no! " Webster shot that out in genu-
ine surprise.

" I got it from Russell," Hastings informed,
and went at once to another topic.

" And that brings us to the letter. Judge Wil-
ton tell you about that? "

Webster was lighting a cigarette, with diffi-
culty holding the fire of the old one to the end

110 "NO CLUE!"

of the new. The operation seemed to entail hard
labour for him.

" In the grey envelope? " he responded, draw-
ing on the cigarette. " Yes. I didn't get it."

He took off his coat. The heat oppressed him.
'At frequent intervals he passed his handkerchief
around the inside of his collar, which was wilt-
ing. Now, more than ever, he gave the im-
pression of exaggerated watchfulness, as if he
attempted prevision of the detective's questions.

" Nobody got it, so far as I can learn," Hast-
ings said, a note of sternness breaking through
the surface of his tone. " It vanished into thin
air. That's the most mysterious thing about
this mysterious murder."

He, in his turn, began pacing the floor, a short
distance to and fro in front of Judge Wilton's
chair, his hands behind him, flopping the baggy
tail of his coat from side to side.

"You doubtless see the gravity of the facts:
that letter was mailed to Sloanehurst. Russell
has just told me so. She waved it in his face,
to taunt him about you, before she dropped it
into the mail-box, He swears" — Hastings
stopped, at the far end of his pacing, and looked
hard at Webster — " it was addressed to you."

Webster, again with his queer, high-pitched
laugh, like derision, threw back his head and
took two long strides toward the centre of the

THE BREAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER 111

room. There he stood a moment, hands in his
pockets, while he stared at the toe of his right
shoe, which he was carefully adjusting to a crack
in the flooring.

Judge Wilton made his chair crackle as he
moved to look at Webster. It was the weight
of the detective's gaze, however, that drew the
lawyer's attention; when he looked up, his eyes
were half-closed, as if the light had suddenly
become painful to them.

" That would be Russell's game, wouldn't it? "
he retorted, at last.

" Mrs. Brace told me the same thing," Hast-
ings said quietly, flashing a look at Wilton and
back to the other.

" Damn her ! " Webster broke forth with such
vehemence that Wilton stared at him in amaze-
ment. " Damn her ! And that's the first time I
ever said that of a woman. It's as I suspected,
as I expected. She's begun some sort of a
crooked game ! "

He trembled like a man with a chill. Hastings
gave him no time to recover himself.

"You know Mrs. Brace, then? Know her
well?" he pressed.

" Well enough ! " Webster retorted with hot
repugnance. "Well enough, although I never
had but one conversation with her — if you may
call that bedlam wildness a conversation. She

112 " NO CLUE ! "

came to my office the second day after I'd dis-
missed her daughter. She made a scene. She
charged me with ruining her daughter's life,
threatened suit for breach of promise. She said
she'd * get even ' with me if it took her the rest
of her life. I don't as a rule pay much attention
to violent women, Mr. Hastings ; but there was
something about her that affected me strongly,
she's implacable, and like stone, not like a
woman. You saw her — understand what I
mean? "

"Perfectly," agreed Hastings.

There flashed across his mind a picture of that
incomprehensible woman's face, the black line
of her eyebrows lifted half-way to her hair, the
abnormal wetness of her lips thickened by a
sneer. " If she's been after this man for two
weeks," he thought, " I can understand his
trembles ! "

But he hurried the inquiry.

" So you think she lied about that letter? "

" Of course ! " Webster laughed on a high
note. " Next, I suppose, she'll produce the let-
ter."

" She can't very well do that."

Something in his voice alarmed the suspected
man.

" What do you mean? " he asked.

Hastings smiled.

THE BREAKING DOWN OP WEBSTER 113

" What do you mean? " Webster asked again,
his voice lowered, and came a step nearer to
the detective.

Hastings took a piece of paper from his
pocket.

" Here's the flap of the grey envelope," he
said, as if that was all the information he meant
to impart.

Webster urged him, with eyes and voice :

"Well?"

"And on the back of it is some of Mildred
Brace's handwriting."

The old man examined the piece of paper with
every show of absorption. He could hear Web-
ster's hurried breathing, and the gulp when he
swallowed the lump in his throat.

The scene had got hold of Wilton also. Lean-
ing forward in his chair, his lips half-parted, the
thumb and forefinger of his right hand mechani-
cally fubbing out his cigar, so that a little stream
of fire trickled to the floor, he gazed unwinking
at the envelope flap.

Webster went a step nearer to Hastings, and
stood, passing his hand across the top of his
head and staring again out of his half-closed
eyes, as if the light had hurt them.

" And," the old man said, regarding Webster
keenly but keeping any hint of accusation out
of his voice, " I found it last night in the fire-

114 "NO CLUE!"

place, behind the screen, in your room up-
stairs."

He paused, looking toward the door, his atten-
tion caught by a noise in the hall.

Webster laughed, on the high, derisive note.
He was noticeably pale.

" Come, man ! " Judge Wilton said, harsh and
imperious. " Can't you see the boy's suffering?
What's written on it?"

" What difference does it make — the writing? "
Webster objected, with a movement of his shoul-
ders that looked like a great effort to pull him-
self together. " If there's any at all, it's faked.
Faked! That's what it is. People don't write
on the inside of envelope flaps."

His face did not express the assurance he
tried to put into his voice. He went back to the
piano and. leaned on it, his posture such that
it might have indicated a nonchalant ease or,
equally well, might have betrayed his desperate
need of support.

" This letter incident can't be waved away,"
Hastings, without handing over the scrap of
envelope, proceeded in even, measured tones —
using his sentences as if they were hammers with
which he assailed the young lawyer's remnants
of self-control. " You're not trifling with a jury,
Mr. Webster. I believe I know as much about
the value of facts, this kind of facts, as you

THE BKEAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER 115

do. Consider what you're up against. You ':

Webster put up a hand in protest, the fingers
so unsteady that they dropped the cigarette
which he had been on the point of lighting.

" Just a moment ! " the old man commanded
him. " This Mildred Brace claimed she had suf-
fered injury at your hands. You fired her out
of your office. She and her mother afterwards
pursued you. She came out here in the middle
of the night, where she knew you were. She
was murdered, and by a weapon whose blade
may have been fashiond from an article you pos-
sessed, an article which is now missing, missing
since you came to Sloanehurst this time. You
were found bending over the dead body.

" Her mother and her closest friend, her
would-be fiance', say she wrote to you Friday
night, addressing her letter to Sloanehurst. The
flap of an envelope, identified by her mother and
friend, and bearing the impression in ink of
her handwriting, is found in the fireplace of your
room here. The man who followed her out here,
who might have been suspected of the murder,
has proved an alibi

" Now, I ask you, as a lawyer and a sensible
man, who's going to believe that she came out
here without having notified you of her coming?
Who, as facts stand now, is going to believe
anything but that you, desperate with the fear

116 "NO CLUE!"

that she would make revelations which would
prevent your marriage to Miss Sloane and keep
you from access to an immense amount of money
which you needed — who's going to believe you
didn't kill her, didn't strike her down, there
in the night, according to a premeditated plan,
with a dagger which, for better protection of
yourself, you had manufactured in a way which
you hoped would make it beyond identification?
Who's "

Wilton intervened again.

" What's your object, Hastings? " he de-
manded, springing from his chair. " You're
treating Berne as if he'd killed the woman and
you could prove it ! "

Webster was swaying on his feet, falling a
little away from the piano and reeling against
it again, his elbows sliding back and forth on
its top. He was extremely pale; e^en his lips,
still stiff and twisted to what he thought was
a belittling smile, were white. He looked at
the detective as a man might gaze at an ad-
vancing terror which he could neither resist
nor flee. His going to pieces was so complete,
so absolute, that it astonished Hastings.

" And you, both of you," the old man retorted
to Wilton's protest; "you're treating me as if
I, were a meddlesome outsider intent on 'fram-
ing up ' a case, instead of the representative of

THE BREAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER 117

the Sloane family — at least, of Miss Lucille
Sloane! Why's that?"

" Tell me what's on that paper," Webster said
hoarsely, as if he had not heard the colloquy of
the other two.

He held up a trembling hand, but without
taking a step. He still swayed, like a man
dangled on strings, against the piano.

" Yes; tell him! " urged Wilton.

Hastings handed Webster the envelope flap.
Instead of looking at it, Webster let it drop
on the piano.

" One of the words," Hastings said, " is ' pur-
suit.' The other two are uncompleted."

" And it's her handwriting, the daughter's? "
Wilton said.

" Beyond a doubt."

Webster kept his unwinking eyes on the detec-
tive, apparently unable to break the spell that
held him. For a long moment, he had said
nothing. When he did speak, it was with mani-
fest difficulty. His words came in a screaming
whisper :

"Then, I'm in desperate shape!"

" Nonsense, man ! " Judge Wilton protested,
his voice raised, and, going to his side, struck
him sharply between the shoulders. " Get your-
self together, Berne ! Brace up ! "

The effect on the collapsing man was, in a way,

118 "NO CLUE!"

magical. He stood erect in response to the blow,
his elbows no longer seeking support on the
piano. He got his eyes away from Hastings and
looked at the judge as a man coming out of a
sound sleep might have done. For a few sec-
onds, he had one hand over his mouth, as if, by
actual manipulation, he would gain control of
the muscles of his lips.

" I feel better," he said at last, dropping the
hand from before his face and squaring his shoul-
ders. " I don't know what hit me. If I'd — you
know," he hesitated, frowning, " if I'd killed the
woman, I couldn't have acted the coward more
thoroughly."

Hastings went through with what he wanted
to say:

"About that letter, Mr. Webster: have you
any idea, can you advance any theory, as to how
that piece of the envelope got into your room? "

Webster was passing his hand across his hair
now, and breathing in a deep, gusty fashion.

" Not the faintest," he replied, hoarsely.

" That's all, then, gentlemen ! " Hastings said,
so abruptly that both of them started. " We
don't seem to have gone very far ahead with this
business. WTe won't, until you — particularly
you, Webster — tell me what you know. It's your
own affair "

" My dear sir " Judge Wilton began.

THE BREAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER 119

" Let me finish ! " Hastings spoke indignantly.
" I'm no fool ; I know when I'm trifled with.
Understand me: I don't say you got that letter,
Mr. Webster ; I don't say you ever saw it ; I don't
know the truth of it — yet. I do say you've de-
liberately refused to respond to my requests for
cooperation. I do say you'd prefer to have me
out of this case altogether. I know it, although
I'm not clear as to your motives— or yours,
judge. You were anxious enough, you said when
we talked at Sloane's door, for me to go on
with it. If you're still of that opinion, I advise
you to advise your friend here to be more out-
spoken with me. I'll give you this straight:
if I can't be corn, I won't be shucks. But I
intend to be corn. I'm going to conduct this
investigation as I see fit. I won't be turned
aside ; I won't play second to your lead ! "

He was fine in his intensity. Astounded by
his vehemence, the two men he addressed were
silent, meeting his keen and steady scrutiny.

He smiled, and, as he did so, they were aware,
with an emotion like shock, that his whole face
mirrored forth a genuine and warm self-satisfac-
tion. The thing was as plain as if he had spoken
it aloud : he had gotten out of the interview what
he wanted. Their recognition of this fact in-
creased their blankness.

" You know my position now," he added, no

120 "NO CLUE!"

longer denunciatory. " If you change your
minds, that will be great! I want all the help
I can get. And, take it from me, young man,
you can't afford to throw away any you can
get."

« Threats? "

Webster had shot out the one word with cool
insolence before the judge could begin a concil-
iatory remark. The change in the lawyer's man-
ner was so unpleasant, the insult so palpably
deliberate, that Hastings could not mistake the
purpose back of it. Webster regarded him out
of burning eyes.

" No ; not threats," Hastings answered him in
a voice that was cold as ice. " I think you un-
derstand what I mean. I know too little, and
I suspect too much, to drop my search for the
murderer of that woman."

Judge Wilton tried to placate him :

" I don't see what your complaint is, Hast-
ings. We "

A smothered, half -articulate cry from Webster
interrupted him. Hastings, first to spring for-
ward, caught the falling man by his arm, break-
ing the force of the fall. He had clutched the
edge of the piano as his legs gave under him.
That, and the quickness of the detective, made
the fall more like a gentle sliding to the floor.

Save for the one, gurgling outcry, no word

THE BREAKING DOWN OF WEBSTER 121

came from him. He was unconscious, his colour-
less lips again twisted to that poor semblance
of smiling defiance which Hastings had noticed
at the beginning of the interview.

THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE

DR. GARNET, reaching Sloanehurst half
an hour later, found Webster in complete
collapse. He declared that for at least
several days the sick man must be kept quiet.
He could not be moved to his apartment in Wash-
ington, nor could he be subjected to questioning
about anything.

"That is," he explained, "for three or four
days — possibly longer. He's critically ill. But
for my knowledge of the terrific shock he's sus-
tained as a result of the murder, I'd be inclined
to say he'd broken down after a long, steady
nervous strain.

" I'll have a nurse out to look after him.
Miss Sloane has volunteered, but she has troubles
of her own."

Judge Wilton took the news to Hastings, who
was on the front porch, whittling, waiting to
see Lucille before returning to Washington.

" I think Garnet's right," Wilton added. " I
thought, even before last night, Berne acted as
if he'd been worn out. And you handled him
122

THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE 123

rather roughly. That sort of questioning, tan-
talizing, keeping a man on tenterhooks, knocks
the metal out of a high-strung temperament like
his. I don't mind telling you it had me pretty
well worked up."

" I'm sorry it knocked him out," Hastings
said. " All I wanted was the facts. He wasn't
frank with me."

" I came out here to talk about that," Wilton
retorted, brusquely. " You're all wrong there,
Hastings! The boy's broken all to pieces. He
sees clearly, too clearly, the weight of suspicion
against him. You've mistaken his panic for
hostility toward yourself."

The old man was unconvinced, and showed it.

" Suspicion doesn't usually knock a man into
a cocked hat — unless there's something to base
it on," he contended.

"All right; I give up," Wilton said, with a
short laugh. " All I know is, he came to me be-
fore we saw you in the music room, and told
me he wanted me to be there, to see that he
omitted not even a detail of what he knew."

Hastings, looking up from the intricate pat-
tern he was carving, challenged the judge :

" Has it occurred to you that, if he's not guilty,
he might suspect somebody else in this house,
might be trying to shield that person? "

In the inconsiderable pause that followed,

124 "NO CLUE!"

Wilton's lips, parting for an incredulous smile,
showed the top of his tongue against his teeth,
as if set for pronunciation of the letter " S."
Hastings, in a mental flash, saw him on the
point of exclaiming : " Sloane ! " But, if that
was in his mind, he put it down, elaborating the
smile to a laughing protest :

" That's going far afield, isn't it? "

Hastings smiled in return : " Maybe so, but it's
a possibility — and possibilities have to be dealt
with."

" Which reminds me," the judge said, now all
amiability ; " don't forget I'm always at your
service in this affair. I see now that you might
have preferred to question Webster alone, in
the music room ; but my confidence in his inno-
cence blinded me to the fact that you could
regard him as actually guilty. I expected noth-
ing but a friendly conference, not a fierce cross-
examination."

" It didn't matter at all," Hastings matched
Wilton's cordial tone; "and I appreciate your
offer, judge. Suppose you tell me anything that
occurs to you, anything that will throw light on
this case any time; and I'll act as go-between
for you with the authorities — if necessary."

"You mean ?"

" I'd like to do the talking for this family and
its friends. I can work better if I can handle

THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE 125

things myself. The half of my job is to save
the Sloanes from as many wild rumours as I
can."

Wilton nodded approval.

" How about Arthur? You want me to take
any questions to him for you? "

"No; thanks.— But," Hastings added, "you
might make him see the necessity of telling me
what he saw last night. If he doesn't come
out with it, he'll make it all the harder on Web-
ster."

" I don't think he saw anything."

" Didn't he? Why'd he refuse to testify be-
fore the coroner, then? "

Sheriff Crown's car came whirling up the
driveway; and Hastings spoke hurriedly:

" You know he's not as sick as he makes out.
He's got to tell me what he knows, judge! He's
holding back something. That's why he wants
to make me so mad I'll quit the case. Who's
he shielding? That's what people will want to
know."

Wilton pondered that.

" I'll see what I can do," he finally agreed.
" According to you, it may appear — people may
suspect — that Webster's guilty or shielding
somebody else; and Arthur's guilty or shield-
ing Webster!"

When Mr. Crown reached the porch, they

126 "NO CLUE!"

were discussing Webster's condition, and Hast-
ings, with the aid of the judge's penknife, was
tightening a screw in his big barlowesque blade.
They were careful to say nothing that might
arouse the sheriff's suspicion of their compact
— an agreement whereby a private detective,
and not the law's representative, was to have
the benefit of all the judge's information bear-
ing on the murder.

Mr. Crown, however, was dissatisfied.

" I'm tied up ! " he complained, nursing with
forefinger and thumb his knuckle-like chin.
" The only place I can get information is at the
wrong end — Russell ! "

" What's the matter with me? " the detective
asked amiably. " I'll be glad to help — if you
think I can."

"What good's that to me?" He wore his
best politician's smile, but there was resentment
in his voice. " Your job is keeping things quiet
— for Sloanehurst. Mr. Sloane's ill, too ill to
see me without endangering his life, so his
funeral-faced valet tells me. Miss Lucille says,
politely enough, she's told all she knows, told
it on the stand, and I'm to go to you if I want
anything more from her. The judge here knows
nothing about the inside relationships of the
family and Webstei, or of Webster and the
Brace girl. And Webster's down and out, thor-

THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE 127

oughly and conveniently ! If all that don't catch
your uncle Robert where the hair's short, I'll
quit!"

"What do you want to know?" Hastings
countered. " You've had access to everything,
far as I can see."

Reply to that was delayed by the appearance
of Jarvis, summoning the judge to Arthur
Sloane's room.

" I want to get at Webster," Crown told Hast-
ings. " And here's why : if Russell didn't kill
her, Webster did."

" Why, you've weakened! " the old man guyedv
head bent over his whittling. " You had Rus-
sell's goose cooked this morning — roasted to a
rich, dark brown ! "

" Yes ; and if I could break down his alibi,
I'd still have him cooked!"

"You accept the alibi, then?"

" Sure, I accept it."

"I don't."

"Why don't you?" objected Crown. "He
didn't have an aeroplane in his hip pocket, did
he? That's the only way he could have cov-
ered those four miles in fifteen minutes. — Or
does his alibi have to fall in order to save Miss
Sloane's fiance'? "

He slapped his ^thigh and thrust out his
bristly moustache. " You're paid to fasten the

128 "NO CLUE!"

thing on Russell," he said, clearly pugnacious.
" I don't expect you to help me work against
Webster! I'm not that simple!"

The old man, with a gesture no more arrest-
ing than to point at the sheriff with the piece
of wood in his left hand, made the official jaw
drop almost to the official chest.

" Mr. Crown," he said, " get this, once and
for all : a man ain't necessarily a crook because
he's once worked for the government. I'm as
anxious to find the guilty man now, every time,
as when I was in the Department of Justice.
And I intend to. From now on, you'll give me
credit for that!— Won't you, Mr. Sheriff?"

Crown apologized. " I'm worried ; that's
what. I'm up a gum stump and can't get dowTn."

" All right, but don't try to make a lad-
der out of me! Why don't you look into that
alibi? "

Crown was irritated again. "What do you
stick to that for? "

" Because," Hastings declared, " I'm ready to
8wear-and-cross-my-heart he lied when he said
he ran that four miles. I'm ready to swear he
was here when the murder was done. When
a man's got as good an alibi as he said he had,
his adam's-apple don't play ' Yankee Doodle '
on his windpipe."

"Is that so!"

THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE 129

" It is — and here's another thing : when's Mrs.
Brace going to break loose? "

" Now, you're talking ! " agreed Crown, with
momentary enthusiasm. " She told me this
morning she'd help me show up Webster — she
wouldn't have it that Russell killed the girl.
Foxy business ! Mixed up in it herself, she runs
to the rescue of the man she "

The sheriff paused, unable to bring that rea-
soning to its logical conclusion.

"No," he said, dejected; " I can't believe she
put him up to murdering her daughter."

" That woman," Hastings said, " is capable
of anything — anything! We're going to find
she's terrible, I tell you, Crown. She's mixed
up in the murder somehow — and, if you don't
find out how, I will ! "

" How can we get her? " Crown argued.
" She was in her flat when the killing was
done. We've searched these grounds, and found
nothing to incriminate anybody. All we've got
is a strong suspicion against two men. She's
out and away."

" Not if we watch her. She's promised to
make trouble — she'll be lucky if she makes none
for herself. Let's keep after her."

"I'm on! But," the sheriff reminded, again
half-hearted, " that won't get us anything soon.
She won't leave her flat before the funeral."

130 "NO CLUE!"

" That won't keep her quiet very long," Hast-
ings contended. " She told me the funeral
would be at nine o'clock tomorrow morning —
from an undertaker's. — Anyway, I've instructed
one of my assistants to keep track of her. I'm
not counting on her grief absorbing her, even
for today."

But he saw that Crown was not greatly im-
pressed with the possibility of finding the mur-
derer through Mrs. Brace. The sheriff was en-
grossed in mental precautions against being mis-
led by " the Sloanehurst detective."

He was still in that mood when Miss Sloane
sent for Hastings.

The detective found her in the music room.
She had taken the chair which Judge Wilton
had occupied an hour before, and was leaning
one elbow on an arm of it, her chin resting
in the cup of her hand. Her dress — a filmy
lavender so light that it shaded almost to pink,
and magically made to bring out the grace of
her figure — drew his attention to the slight sag
of her shoulders, suggestive of great weariness.

But he was captivated anew by her grave
loveliness, and by her fortitude. She betrayed
her agitation only in the fine tremour in her
hands and a certain slowness in her words.

On the porch, talking to Judge Wilton, he
had wondered, in a moment of irritation, why

THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE 131

he continued on the case against so much ap-
parent opposition in the very household which
he sought to help. He knew now that neither
his sense of duty nor his fee was the deciding
influence. He stayed because this girl needed
him, because he had seen in her eyes last night
the haggard look of an unspeakable suspicion.
" You wanted to see me — is there anything
special? " she asked him, immediately alert.

" Yes ; there is, Miss Sloane," he said, careful
to put into his voice all the sympathy he felt
for her.

" Yes? " She was looking at him with steady
eyes.

" It's this, and I want you to bear in mind
that I wouldn't bring it up but for my desire
to put an end to your uncertainty: I'm afraid
you haven't told me everything you know, every-
thing you saw last night in "

When she would have spoken, he put up a
warning hand.

" Let me explain, please. Don't commit your-
self until you see what I mean. Judge Wilton
and Mr. Webster seem to think I'm not needed
here. It may be a natural attitude — for them.
They're both lawyers, and to lawyers a mere
detective doesn't amount to much."

" Oh, I'm sure it isn't that," she flashed out,
apologizing.

132 "NO CLUE!"

" Oh, I don't mind, personally," he said, with
a smile for which she felt grateful. " As I say,
it's natural for them to think that way, perhaps.
Your father, however, is not a lawyer; and,
when I went into his room at your request, he
took pains to offend me, insult me, several
times." That brought a faint flush to her face.
" So, that leaves only you to give me facts
which I must have — if they exist."

He became more urgent.

"And you employed me, Miss Sloane; you
appealed to me when you were at a loss where
to turn. I'm only fair to myself as well as
to you when I tell you that your distress, far
more than financial considerations, persuaded
me to undertake this work without first consult-
ing your father."

She leaned toward him, bending from the
waist, her eyes slightly widened, so that their
effect was to give her a startled air.

" You don't mean you'll give it up ! " she
said, plainly entreating. "You won't give it
up!"

"Are you quite sure you don't want me to
give it up? Judge Wilton has asked me twice,
out of politeness, not to give it up. Are you
merely being polite? "

She smiled, looking tired, and shook her head.

" Really, Mr. Hastings, if you were to desert

THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE 133

us now, I should be desperate — altogether. Des-
perate! Just that."

" I can't desert you," he said gently. "As I
told Mr. Webster, I know too little and I sus-
pect too much to do that."

Before she spoke again, she looked at him
intently, drawing in her under lip a little
against her teeth.

" What, Mr. Hastings? " she asked, then.
" What do you suspect? "

" Let me answer that with a question," he
suggested. " Last night, your one idea was that
I could protect you and your father, everybody
in the house here, by acting as your spokes-
man. I think you wanted to set me up as
a buffer between all of you on the one side
and the authorities and the reporters on the
other. You wanted things kept down, nothing
to get out beyond that which was unavoidable.
Wasn't that it?"

" Yes ; it was," she admitted, not seeing where
his question led.

" You were afraid, then, that something in-
criminating might be divulged, weren't you? "

" Oh, no ! " she denied instantly.

" I mean something which might seem incrim-
inating. You trusted the person whom it would
seem to incriminate; and you wanted time for
the murderer to be found without, in the mean-

134 "NO CLUE!"

time, having the adverse circumstance made
public. Isn't that it, Miss Sloane? "

" Yes — practically."

" Let's be clear on that. Your fear was that
too much questioning of you or the other per-
son might result in a slip-up — might make you
or him mention the apparently damaging
incident, with disastrous effect. Wasn't that
it?"

"Yes; that was it."

" Now, what was that apparently incrimi-
nating incident? "

She started. He had brought her so directly
to the confession that she saw now the impos-
sibility of withholding what he sought.

" It may be," he tried to lighten her respon-
sibility, " the very thing that Webster and the
judge have concealed — for I'm sure they're keep-
ing something back. Perhaps, if I knew it,
things would be easier. People closely affected
by a crime are the last to judge such things
accurately."

She gave a long breath of relief, looking at
him with perplexity nevertheless.

" Yes — I know. That was why I came to you
— last night — in the beginning."

"And it was about them, Webster and Wil-
ton," he drew the conclusion for her, still en-
couraging her with his smile, regarding her

THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE 135

over the rims of his spectacles with a fatherly
kindness.

She turned from him and looked out of the
window. It was the middle of a hot, still day,
no breeze stirring, and wonderfully quiet. For
the moment, there was no sound, in the house
or outside.

" Oh ! " she cried, her voice a revelation of
the extent to which her doubts had oppressed
her. "It was like that, out there — quiet, still !
If you could only understand ! "

" My dear child," he said, " rely on me. The
sheriff is bound to assert himself, to keep in
the front of things; he's that kind of a man.
He'll make an arrest any time, or announce that
he will. Don't you see the danger? " He leaned
forward and took her hand, a move to which
she seemed oblivious. " Don't you see I
must have facts to go on — if I'm to help
you? "

At that, she disengaged her hand, and sat
very straight, her face again a little turned
from him. A twitch, like a shudder cut short,
moved her whole body, so that the heel of her
slipper rapped smartly on the floor.

" I wish," she whispered dully, " I wish I
knew what to do ! "

" Tell me," he urged, as if he spoke to a
child.

136 "NO CLUE!"

She showed him her face, very white, with
sudden shadows under the eyes.

" I must, I think ; I must tell you," she said,
not much louder than the previous whisper.
" You were right. I didn't tell the whole story
of what I saw. Believe me, I didn't think it
mattered. I thought, really, things would right
themselves and explanations be unnecessary.
But you knew — didn't you? "

" Yes. I knew." He realized her ordeal,
helping her through it. " What were they do-
ing? "

She held her chin high.

" It was all true, what I told you in the
library, my being waked up by father's moving
about, my going to the window, my seeing Berne
and the judge facing each other across — her —
there at the end of the awful yellow arm of
light. But that wasn't all. The moment the
light flashed on, the judge threw back his head
a little, like a man about to cry out, shout for
help. I am sure that was it.

" But Berne was too quick for that. Berne
put out his hand; his arm shot across her; and
his hand closed the judge's mouth. The judge
made no noise whatever, but he shook his head
from side to side two or three times — I'm not
certain how many — while Berne leant over the
body and whispered to him. It seemed to

THE WHISPERED CONFERENCE 137

me I could almost hear the words, but I
didn't.

" Then Berne took his hand from the judge's
mouth. I think, before that, the judge made a
sign, tried to nod his head up and down, to
show he would do as Berne said. Then, when
they saw she was dead, they both hurried around
the corner to the front of the house, and I heard
them come in; I heard the judge call to father
and run up to your room."

She was alarmed then by the amazement and
disapproval in his face.

" Oh ! " she said, and this time she took his
hand. " You see ! You see ! You don't under-
stand! You think Berne killed her! "

" I don't know," he said, wondering. " I must
think." For the moment, indignation swept
him. "Wilton! A judge, a judge! — keeping
quiet on a thing like that! I must think."

XI

MOTIVES REVEALED

SHE let go his hand and, still leaning toward
him, waited for him to speak. A confusion
of misgivings assailed her — she regretted
having confided in him. If his anger embraced
Berne as well as Judge Wilton, she had done
nothing but harm !

Seeing her dismay, he tried again to reassure
her.

" But no matter ! " he minimized his own sense
of shock. " I'm sure I'll understand if you'll tell
me more — your explanation."

Obviously, the only inference he could draw
from her story as she had told it was that
Webster had killed the woman and, found bend-
ing over her body, had sprung forward to silence
the man who had discovered him. Nevertheless,
it was equally evident that she was sincere in
attributing to Webster a different motive for
preventing the judge's outcry. Consideration
of that persuaded Hastings that she could give
him facts which would change the whole aspect
of the crime.

138

MOTIVES REVEALED 139

Her hesitance now made him uneasy ; he rec-
ognized the necessity of increasing her reliance
upon him. If she told him only a part of what
she knew, he would be scarcely in a better posi-
tion than before.

" Naturally," he added, " you can throw light
on the whole incident — light by which I must
be guided, to a great degree."

" If Berne were not ill," she responded to
that, " I wouldn't tell. — It's because he's lying
up there, his lips closed, unable to keep a look-
out for developments, at the mercy of what the
sheriff may do or say! — That's why I feel so
dreadfully the need of help, Mr. Hastings ! "

She slid back in her chair, moving farther
from him, as if his kindly gaze disconcerted
her.

" If he hadn't suffered this collapse, I should
have left the matter to him, I think. But now
— now I can't ! " She straightened again, her
chin up, the signal with her of final decision.
" He acted on his impulsive desire to prevent
my being shocked by that discovery — that hor-
ror out there on the lawn. Things had hap-
pened to convince him that such a thing, shouted
through the night, would be a terrific blow to
me. I'm sure that that was the only idea he
had when he put his hand over Judge Wilton's
mouth."

140 "NO CLUE!"

" I can believe that," he said. " Tell me why
you believe it."

" Oh ! " she protested, hands clenched on her
knees; "if it affected only him and me!"

Her suspicion of her father recurred to him.
It was, he thought, back of the terror he saw
in her eyes now.

" But it does affect only him and me, after
all ! " she continued fiercely, as much to
strengthen herself in what she wanted to believe
as to force him to that belief. " Let me tell
you the whole affair, from beginning to end."

She proceeded in a low tone, the words slower,
as if she laboured for precision and clarity.

" I must go back to Friday — the night before
last — it seems months ago! I had heard that
Berne had become involved in some sort of
relationship with his stenographer — that she had
been dismissed from his office and refused to
accept the dismissal as final. I mean, of course,
I heard she was in love with him, and he'd been
in love with her— or should have been.

" It was told me by a friend of mine in Wash-
ington, Lucy Carnly. It seems another stenog-
rapher overheard the conversation between
Berne and Miss — Miss Brace. It got out that
way. It was very circumstantial; I couldn't
help believing it, some of it ; Lucy wouldn't have
brought me idle gossip — I thought."

MOTIVES REVEALED 141

She drew in her under lip, to hide its momen-
tary tremour, and shook her head from side to
side once.

" All that, Mr. Hastings, came up, as a matter
of course, when Berne reached here evening
before last for the week-end. I'd just heard
it that day. He denied it, said there had been
nothing remotely resembling a love affair. — He
was indignant, and very hurt! — He said she'd
misconstrued some of his kindnesses to her. He
couldn't explain how she had misconstrued
them. At any rate, the result was that I broke
our engagement. I "

" Friday night ! " Hastings exclaimed invol-
untarily.

He grasped on the instant how grossly Web-
ster, by withholding all this, had deceived him,
left him in the dark.

" Yes ; and I told father about it," she hurried
her words here, the effect of her manner being
the impression that she hoped this fact would
not bulk too large in the detective's thoughts.
" The three of us had a talk about it Friday
night. Father's wonderfully fond of Berne and
tried to persuade me I was foolishly ruining
my life. I refused to change my mind. When
I went upstairs, they stayed a long time in the
library, talking.

" I think they decided the best thing for Berne

142 "NO CLUE!"

was to stay on here, through yesterday and to-
fday, in the hope that he and father might
change my mind. Father tried to, yesterday
morning. He was awfully upset. That's one
reason he's so worn out and sick today. — I love
my father so, Mr. Hastings! " She held her lips
tight-shut a moment, a sob struggling in her
throat. " But my distress, my own hurt
pride—

"What did your father say about Mildred
Brace? " Hastings asked, when she did not finish
that sentence.

She looked at him, again with widened eyes,
a startled air, putting both her hands to her
throat.

" There ! " she said, voice falling to a whisper.

Then, turning her face half from him, she
whispered so low that he heard her with diffi-
culty : " I wish I were dead ! "

Her words frightened him, they had so clearly
the ring of truth, as if she would in sober fact
have preferred death to the thought which
was breaking her heart — suspicion of her
father.

" That was why Berne stopped the judge's out-
cry," she said at last, turning her white face
to him ; " he had the sudden wild idea that I'm
afraid you have — that father might have killed
her. And Berne did not want that awful fact

MOTIVES EEVEALED 143

screamed through the night at me. Oh, can't
you see — can't you see that, Mr. Hastings? "

" It's entirely possible ; Mr. Webster may
have thought that. — But let's keep the story
straight. What had your father said about
Mildred Brace — to arouse any such suspicion? "

" He was angry, terribly indignant. You
know I made no secret to you of his high tem-
per. His rages are fierce. — Once, when he was
that way, I saw him kill a dog. If it had — but
I think all men who're unstrung nervously, as
he is, have high tempers. He felt so indignant
because she had come between Berne and my-
self. He blamed neither Berne nor me. He
seemed to concentrate all his anger upon her.

" He said — you see, Mr. Hastings, I tell you

everything ! — he threatened to go to her and

He had, of course, no definite idea what he would
do. Finally, he did say he would buy her off,
pay her to leave this part of the country. After
that, he said, he knew I would l see things
clearly,' and Berne and I would be reconciled."

Hastings remembered Russell's assertion that
Mildred had her ticket to Chicago.

" Did he buy her off? " he asked quickly.

" Oh, no ; he was merely wishing that he could,
I think."

" But he made no attempt to get in touch
with her yesterday? You're sure? "

144 "NO CLUE!"

" Quite," she said. " But don't you see. Mr.
Hastings? Father was so intense in his hatred
of her that Berne thought of him the moment
he found that body — out there. He thought
father must have encountered her on the lawn
in some way, or she must have come after him,
and he, in a fit of rage, struck her down."

" Has Webster told you this? "

" No— but it's true; it is! "

"But, if your supposition is to hold good,
how did your father happen to be in possession
of that dagger, which evidently was made with
malice aforethought, as the lawyers say? "

" Exactly," she said, her lips quivering, hands
gripping spasmodically at her knees. " He
didn't do it! He didn't do it! Berne's idea
was a mistake ! "

"Who, then?" he pressed her, realizing now
that she was so unstrung she would give him
her thoughts unguarded.

" Why, that man Russell," she said, her voice
so low and the words so slow that he thought
her at the limit of her endurance. " But I've
said all this to show you why Berne put his
hand over the judge's mouth. I want to make
it very clear that he feared father — think of
it, Mr. Hastings !— had killed her! At first, I
thought "

She bowed her face in both her hands and

MOTIVES REVEALED 145

wept unrestrainedly, without sobs, the tears
streaming between her fingers and down her
wrists.

The old man put one hand on her hair, and
with the other brought forth his handkerchief,
being bothered by the sudden mistiness of his
spectacles.

"A brave girl," he said, his own voice in-
secure. " What a woman ! I know what you
mean. At first, you feared your father might
have been concerned in the murder. I saw it
in your eyes last night. You had the same
thought that young Webster had — rather, that
you say he had."

Her weeping ceased as suddenly as it had be-
gun. She looked at him through tears.

" And I've only injured Berne in your eyes ;
I think, irreparably! This morning I thought
you heard me when I asked him not to let it be
known that our engagement was broken? Don't
you remember? You were on the porch as we
came around the corner."

For the first time since its utterance, he re-
called her statement then, " We'll have to leave
it as it was," and Webster's significant rejoinder.
He despised his own stupidity. Had he magni-
fied Webster's desire to keep that promise into
guilty knowledge of the crime itself? And had
not the mistake driven him into false and value-

146 "NO CLUE!"

less interpretations of his entire interview with
Webster?

" fle promised," Lucille pursued, " for the
same reason I had in asking it — to prevent dis-
covery of the fact that father might have had
a motive for wishing her dead! It was a mis-
take, I see now, a terrible mistake ! "

" Can you tell me why you didn't have the
same thoughts about Berne?" He was sorry
he had to make that inquiry. If he could, he
would have spared her further distress. " Why
wouldn't he have had the same motive, hatred
of Mildred Brace, a thousand times stronger? "

" I don't know," she said. " I simply never
thought of it — not once."

Fine psychologist that he was, Eastings knew
why that view had not occurred to her. Her
love for Webster was an idealizing sentiment,
putting him beyond even the possibility of
wrong-doing. Her love for her father, unusual
in its devotion as it was, recognized his weak-
nesses nevertheless.

And, while seeking to protect the two, she
had told a story which, so far as bald facts
went, incriminated the lover far more than the
father. She had attributed to Sloane, in her
uneasiness, the motive which would have been
most natural to the discarded Webster. Even
now, she could not suspect Berne ; her only fear

MOTIVES REVEALED 147

was that others, not understanding him as she
did, might suspect him! Although she had
broken with him, she still loved him. More
than that: his illness and consequent helpless-
ness increased her devotion for him, brought to
the surface the maternal phase of it.

" If she had to choose between the two," Hast-
ings thought, " she'd save Webster — every
time!"

" I know — I tell you, Mr. Hastings, I know
neither Berne nor father is at all responsible
for this crime. I tell you," she repeated, rising
to her feet, as if by mere physical height she
hoped to impress her knowledge upon him, " I
know they're innocent. — Don't you know it? "

She stood looking down at him, her whole
body tense, arms held close against her sides,
the knuckles of her fingers white as ivory. Her
eyes now were dry, and brilliant.

He evaded the flat statement to which she
pressed him. '

" But your knowledge, Miss Sloane, and what
we must prove," he said, also standing, " are
two different things just now. The authorities
will demand proofs."

" I know. That's why I've told you these
things." Somehow, her manner reproached him.
" You said you had to have them in order to
handle this — this situation properly. Now that

148 "NO CLUE!"

you know them, I'm sure you'll feel safe in
devoting all your time to proving Russell's
guilt." She moved her head forward, to study
him more closely. " You know he's guilty, don't
you? "

" I'm certain Mrs. Brace figured in her daugh-
ter's murder," he said. " She was concerned in
it somehow. If that's true, and if your father
approached neither her nor her daughter yes-
terday, it does seem highly possible that Rus-
sell's guilty."

He turned from her and stood at the window,
his back to her a few long moments. When he
faced her again, he looked old.

" But the facts — if we could only break down
Russell's alibi ! "

" Oh ! " she whispered, in new alarm. " I'd
forgotten that ! "

All the tenseness went out of her limbs. She
sank into her chair, and sat there, looking up
to him, her eyes frankly confessing a panic fear.

" I think I'm sorry I told you," she said, des-
perately. " I can't make you understand ! "
Another consideration forced itself upon her.
" You won't have to tell anybody — anybody at
all — about this, will you — now? "

He was prepared for that.

" I'll have to ask Judge Wilton why he acted
on Mr. Webster's advice — and what that advice

MOTIVES REVEALED 149

was, what they whispered to each other when
you saw them."

" Why, that's perfectly fair," she assented,
relieved. " That will stop all the secrecy be-
tween them and me. It's the very thing I want.
If that's assured, everything else will work itself
out."

Her faith surprised him. He had not realized
how unqualified it was.

" Did you ask the judge about it? " he in-
quired.

"Yes; just before I came in here — after
Berne's collapse. I felt so helpless! But he
tried to persuade me my imagination had de-
ceived me; he said they had had no such scene.
You know how gruff and hard Judge Wilton
can be at times. I shouldn't choose him for a
confidant."

" No ; I reckon not. But we'll ask him now
— if you don't mind."

Willis, the butler, answered the bell, and gave
information : Judge Wilton had left Sloanehurst
half an hour ago and had gone to the Randalls'.
He had asked for Miss Sloane, but, learning
that she was engaged, had left his regrets, say-
ing he would come in tomorrow, after the ad-
journment of court.

" He's on the bench tomorrow at the county-
seat," Lucille explained the message. "He al-

150 "NO CLUE!"

ways divides his time between us and the Ran-
dalls when he comes down from Fairfax for his
court terms. He told me this morning he'd
come back to us later in the week."

"On second thought," Hastings said, "that's
better. I'll talk to him alone tomorrow — about
this thing, this inexplicable thing: a judge tak-
ing it upon himself to deceive the sheriff even!
But," he softened the sternness of his tone, " he
must have a reason, a better one than I can
think of now." He smiled. " And I'll report
to you, when he's told me.'

" I'm glad it's tomorrow," she said wearily.
" I— I'm tired out."

On his way back to Washington, the old man
reflected : " Now, she'll persuade Sloane to do
the sensible thing — talk." Then, to bolster that
hope, he added a stern truth : " He's got to.
He can't gag himself with a pretended illness
forever ! "

At the same time the girl he had left in the
music room wept again, saying over and over
to herself, in a despair of doubt : " Not that !
Not that! I couldn't tell him that. I told him
enough. I know I did. He wouldn't have un-
derstood!"

XII

HENDRICKS REPORTS

IN his book-lined, " loosely furnished " apart-
ment Sunday afternoon Hastings whittled
prodigiously, staring frequently at the flap
of the grey envelope with the intensity of a
crystal-gazer. Once or twice he pronounced
aloud possible meanings of the symbols im-
printed on the scrap of paper.

«< — edly de — ?»» he worried. "That might
stand for ' repeatedly demanded ' or t repeatedly
denied ' or ' undoubtedly denoted ' or a hun-
dred But that ' Pursuit ! ' is the core of

the trouble. They put the pursuit on him, sure
as you're knee-high to a hope of heaven ! "

The belief grew in him that out of those
pieces of words would come solution of his prob-
lem. The idea was born of his remarkable in-
stinct. Its positiveness partook of superstition
— almost. He could not shake it off. Once he
chuckled, appreciating the apparent absurdity
of trying to guess the criminal meaning, the
criminal intent, back of that writing. But he
kept to his conjecturing.

He had many interruptions. Newspaper re-

151

152 "NO CLUE!"

porters, instantly impressed by the dramatic
possibilities, the inherent sensationalism, of
the murder, flocked to him. Referred to him by
the people at Sloanehurst, they asked for not
only his narration of what had occurred but
also for his opinion as to the probability of
running down the guilty man.

He would make no predictions, he told them,
confining himself to a simple statement of facts.
When one young sleuth suggested that both
Sloane and Webster feared arrest on the charge
of murder and had relied on his reputation to
prevent prompt action against them by the
sheriff, the old man laughed. He knew the
futility of trying to prevent publication of inti-
mations of that sort.

But he took advantage of the opportunity to
put a different interpretation on his employment
by the Sloanes.

" Seems to me," he contributed, " it's more
logical to say that their calling in a detective
goes a long way to show their innocence of all
connection with the crime. They wouldn't pay
out real money to have themselves hunted, if
they were guilty, would they? "

Afterwards, he was glad he had emphasized
this point. In the light of subsequent events,
it looked like actual foresight of Mrs. Brace's
tactics.

HENDRICKS EEPORTS 153

Soon after five Hendricks came in, to report.
He was a young man, stockily built, with eyes
that were always on the verge of laughter and
lips that sloped inward as if biting down on
the threatened mirth. The shape of his lips was
symbolical of his habit of discourse; he was of
few words.

" Webster," he said, standing across the table
from his employer and shooting out his words
like a memorized speech, "been overplaying his
hand financially. That's the rumour; nothing
tangible yet. Gone into real estate and building
projects; associated with a crowd that has the
name of operating on a shoestring. Nobody'd be
surprised if they all blew up."

" As a real-estate man, I take it," Hastings
commented, slowly shaving off thin slivers of
chips from his piece of pine, " he's a brilliant
young lawyer. That's it? "

" Yes, sir," Hendricks agreed, the slope of
his lips accentuated.

"Keep after that, tomorrow. — What about
Mrs. Brace?"

" Destitute, practically ; in debt ; threatened
with eviction; no resources."

"So money, lack of it, is bothering her as
well as Webster! — How much is she in
debt? "

" Enough to be denied all credit by the stores ;

154 "NO CLUE!"

between five and seven hundred, I should say.
That's about the top mark for that class of
trade."

" All right, Hendricks ; thanks," the old man
commended warmly. " That's great work, for
Sunday. — Now, Russell's room?"

" Yes, sir ; I went over it."

" Find any steel on the floor? "

Hendricks took from his pocket a little paper
parcel about the size of a man's thumb.

" Not sure, sir. Here's what I got."

He unfolded the paper and put it down on the
table, displaying a small mass of what looked
like dust and lint.

" Wonderful what a magnet will pick up, ain't
it?" mused his employer: "I got the same sort
of stuff at Sloanehurst this morning. — I'll go
over this, look for the steel particles, right
away."

" Anything else, sir — special? "

The assistant was already half-way to the
door. He knew that a floor an inch deep in
chips from his employer's whittling indicated
laborious mental gropings by the old man. It
was no time for superfluous words.

" After dinner," Hastings instructed, " relieve
Gore — at the Walman. Thanks."

As Hendricks went out, there was another
telephone call, this time from Crown, to make

HENDRICKS REPORTS 155

amends for coolness he had shown Hastings at
Sloanehurst.

" I was wrong, and you were right," he con-
ceded, handsomely ; " I mean about that Brace
woman. Better keep your man on her
trail."

" What's up? " Hastings asked amicably.

" That's what I want to know ! I've seen her
again. I couldn't get anything more from her
except threats. She's going on the warpath.
She told me: ' Tomorrow I'll look into things for
myself. I'll not sit here idle and leave every-
thing to a sheriff who wants campaign contribu-
tions and a detective who's paid to hush things
up!' You can see her saying that, can't you?
Wow!"

"That all?"

"That's all, right now. But I've got a sus-
picion she knows more than we think. When
she makes up her mind to talk, she'll say some-
thing!— Mr. Hastings," Crown added, as if he
imparted a tremendous fact, "that woman's
smart! I tell you, she's got brains, a head full
of 'em!"

"So I judged," the detective agreed, drily.
" By the way, have you seen Russell again? "

"Yes. There's another thing. I don't see
where you get that stuff about his weak alibi.
It's copper-riveted ! "

156 "NO CLUE!"

" He says so, you mean."

" Yes ; and the way he says it. But I followed
your advice. I've advertised, through the police
here and up and down the Atlantic coast, for
any automobile party or parties who went along
that Sloanehurst road last night between ten-
thirty and eleven-thirty."

"Fine!" Hastings congratulated. "But get
me straight on that: I don't say any of them
saw him; I say there's a chance that he was
seen."

The old man went back, not to examination
of Hendricks' parcel, but to further considera-
tion of the possible contents of the letter that
had been in the grey envelope. Russell, he re-
flected, had been present when Mildred Brace
mailed it, and, what was more important, when
Mildred started out of the apartment with
it.

He made sudden decision: he would question
Russell again. Carefully placing Hendricks'
package of dust and lint in a drawer of the
table, he set out for the Eleventh street boarding
house.

It was, however, not Russell who figured most
prominently in the accounts of the murder pub-
lished by the Monday morning newspapers. The
reporters, resenting the reticence they had en-
countered at Sloanehurst, and making much of

HENDEICKS EEPORTS 157

Mrs. Brace's threats, put in the forefront of
their stories an appealing picture of a bereaved
mother's one-sided fight for justice against the
baffling combination of the Sloanehurst secretive-
ness and indifference and the mysterious cir-
cumstances of the daughter's death. Not one
of them questioned the validity of Russell's
alibi.

" With the innocence of the dead girl's fiance^
established," said one account, "Sheriff Crown
last night made no secret of his chagrin that
Berne Webster had collapsed at the very mo-
ment when the sheriff was on the point of put-
ting him through a rigid cross-examination.
The young lawyer's retirement from the scene,
coupled with the Sloane family's retaining the
celebrated detective, Jefferson Hastings, as a
buffer against any questioning of the Sloane-
hurst people, has given Society, here and in Vir-
ginia, a topic for discussion of more than ordi-
nary interest."

Another paragraph that caught Hastings' at-
tention, as he read between mouthfuls of his
breakfast, was this:

" Mrs. Brace, discussing the tragedy with a
reporter last night, showed a surprising knowl-
edge of all its incidents. Although she had not
left her apartment in the Walman all day, she
had been questioned by both Sheriff Crown and

158 "NO CLUE!"

Mr. Hastings, not to mention the unusually
large number of newspaper writers who besieged
her for interviews.

" And it seemed that, in addition to answering
the queries put to her by the investigators, she
had accomplished a vast amount of keen inquiry
on her own account. When talking to her, it
is impossible for one to escape the impression
that this extraordinarily intelligent woman be-
lieves she can prove the guilt of the man who
struck down her daughter."

" Just what I was afraid of," thought the
detective. " Nearly every paper siding with
her!"

His face brightened.

" All the better," he consoled himself. " More
chance of her overreaching herself — as long as
she don't know what I suspect. I'll get the
meaning of that grey letter yet ! "

But he was worried. Berne Webster's col-
lapse, he knew, was too convenient for Webster
— it looked like pretence. Ninety-nine out of
every hundred newspaper readers would con-
sider his illness a fake, the obvious trick to
escape the work of explaining what seemed to
be inexplicable circumstances,

To Hastings the situation was particularly
annoying because he had brought it about; his
own questioning had turned out to be the

HENDRICKS KEPORTS 159

straw that broke the suspected man's endur-
ance.

" Always blundering ! " he upbraided himself.
" Trying to be so all-shot smart, I overplayed
my hand."

He got Dr. Garnet on the wire.

"Doctor," he said, in a tone that implored,
" I'm obliged to see Webster today."

" Sorry, Mr. Hastings," came the instant re-
fusal ; " but it can't be done."

" For one question," qualified Hastings ; " less
than a minute's talk — one word, ' yes ' or ' no '?
It's almost a matter of life and death."

" If that man's excited about anything," Gar-
net retorted, "it will be entirely a matter of
death. Frankly, I couldn't see my way clear
to letting you question him if his escaping ar-
rest depended on it. I called in Dr. Welles last
night; and I'm giving you his opinion as well
as my own."

"When can I see him, then?"

" I can't answer that. It may be a week ; it
may be a month. All I can tell you today is
that you can't question him now."

With that information, Hastings decided to
interview Judge Wilton.

"He's the next best," he thought. "That
whispering across the woman's body — it's got
to be explained, and explained right ! "

160 -"NO CLUE!"

As a matter of fact, he had refrained from
this inquiry the day before, so that his mind
might not be clouded by anger. His deception
by the judge had greatly provoked him.

XIII

MBS. BRACE BEGINS

COURT had recessed for lunch when Hast-
ings, going down a second-story corridor
of the Alexandria county courthouse, en-
tered Judge Wilton's anteroom. His hand was
raised to knock on the door of the inner office
when he heard the murmur of voices on the
other side. He took off his hat and sat down,
welcoming the breeze that swept through the
room, a refreshing contrast to the forenoon's
heat and smother downstairs.

He reached for his knife and piece of pine,
checked the motion and glanced swiftly toward
the closed door. A high note of a woman's voice
touched his memory, for a moment confusing
him. But it was for a moment only. While
the sound was still in his ears, he remembered
where he had heard it before — from Mrs. Brace
when, toward the close of his interview with
her, she had shrilly denounced Berne Webster.

Mrs. Brace, her daughter's funeral barely
three hours old, had started to make her threats
good.

161

162 "NO CLUE!"

While he was considering that, the door of
the private office swung inward, Judge Wilton's
hand on the knob. It opened on the middle of
a sentence spoken by Mrs. Brace:

" — tell you, you're a fool if you think you
can put me off with that ! "

Her gleaming eyes were so furtive and so
quick that they traversed the whole of Wilton's
countenance many times, a fiery probe of each
separate feature. The inflections of her voice
invested her words with ugliness; but she did
not shriek.

" You bully everybody else, but not me ! They
don't call you i Hard Tom Wilton ' for nothing,
do they? I know you! I know you, I tell you!
I was down there in the courtroom when you
sentenced that man! You had cruelty in your
mind, cruelty on your face. Ugh ! And you're
cruel to me — and taking an ungodly pleasure
in it! Well, let me tell you, I won't be broken
by it. I want fair dealing, and I'll have it ! "

At that moment, facing full toward Hastings,
she caught sight of him. But his presence
seemed a matter of no importance to her; it
did not break the stream of her fierce invective.
She did not even pause.

He saw at once that her anger of yesterday
was as nothing to the storming rage which
shook her now. Every line of her face revealed

MRS. BRACE BEGINS 163

malignity. The eyebrows were drawn higher on
her forehead, nearer to the wave of white hair
that showed under her black hat. The nostrils
dilated and contracted with indescribable rapid-
ity. The lips, thickened and rolling back at
intervals from her teeth, revealed more dis-
tinctly that animal, exaggerated wetness which
had so repelled him.

" You were out there on that lawn ! " she
pursued, her glance flashing back to the judge.
" You were out there when she was killed! If
you try to tell me you "

"Stop it! Stop it!" Wilton commanded,
and, as he did so, turned his head to an angle
that put Hastings within his field of vision.

The judge, with one hand on the doorknob,
had been pressing with the other against the
woman's shoulders, trying to thrust her out of
the room — a move which she resisted by a hang-
ing-back posture that threw her weight on his
arm. He put more strength now into his effort
and succeeded in forcing her clear of the thresh-
old. His eyes were blazing under the shadow
of. his heavy, overhanging brows ; but there was
about him no suggestion of a loss of self-control.

" I'm glad to see you ! " he told Hastings,
speaking over Mrs. Brace's head, and smiling
a deprecatory recognition of the hopelessness
of contending with an infuriated woman.

164 "NO CLUE!"

She addressed them both.

" Smile all you please, now ! " she threatened.
" But the accounts aren't balanced yet ! Wait
for what I choose to tell — what I intend to do ! "

Suddenly she got herself in hand. It was as
unexpected and thorough a transformation as
the one Hastings had seen twenty-four hours
before during her declaration of Webster's guilt.
She had the same appearance now as then, the
same tautness of body, the same flat, constrained
tone.

She turned to Wilton:

" I ask you again, will you help me as I asked
you? Are you going to deny me fair play? "

He looked at her in amazament, scowling.

" What fair play? " he exclaimed, and, with-
out waiting for her reply, said to Hastings:
" She insists that I know young Webster killed
her daughter, that I can produce the evidence to
prove it. Can you disabuse her mind? "

She surprised them by going, slowly and with
apparent composure, toward the corridor door.
There she paused, looking at first one and then
the other with an evil smile so openly contempt-
uous that it affected them strongly. There was
something in it that made it flagrantly insulting.
Hastings turned away from her. Judge Wilton
gave her look for look, but his already flushed
face coloured more darkly.

MRS. BRACE BEGINS 165

" Very well, Judge Wilton ! " she gave him
insolent good-bye, in which there was also un-
mistakable threat. " You'll do the right thing
sooner or later — and as I tell you. You're — get
this straight — you're not through with me yet ! "

She laughed, one low note, and, impossible
as it seemed, proclaimed with the harsh sound
an absolute confidence in what she said.

" Nor you, Mr. Hastings ! " she continued,
taking her time with her words, and waiting
until the detective faced her again, before she
concluded : " You'll sing a different tune when
you find I've got this affair in my hands — tight! '

Still smiling her contempt, as if she enjoyed
a feeling of superiority, she left the room. When
her footsteps died down the corridor, the two
men drew long breaths of relief.

Wilton broke the ensuing silence.

" Is she sane? "

" Yes," Hastings said, " so far as sanity can
be said to exist in a mind consecrated to evil."

The judge was surprised by the solemnity of
the other's manner. " Why do you say that? "
he asked. " Do you know that much about
her? "

" Who wouldn't? " Hastings retorted. " It's
written all over her."

Wilton led the way into his private office and
closed the door.

166 "NO CLUE!"

" I'm glad it happened at just this time," he
said, "when everybody's out of the building."
He struck the desk with his fist. " By God! "
he ground out through gritted teeth. " How I
hate these wild, unbridled women ! "

" Yes," agreed Hastings, taking the chair Wil-
ton rolled forward for him. " She worries me.
Wonder if she's going to Sloanehurst."

" That would be the logical sequel to this
visit," Wilton said. " But pardon my show of
temper. You came to see me? "

" Yes ; and, like her, for inf ormation. But,"
the detective said, smiling, " not for rough-house
purposes."

The judge had not entirely regained his equa-
nimity; his face still wore a heightened colour;
his whole bearing was that of a man mentally
reviewing the results of an unpleasant incident.
Instead of replying promptly to Hastings, he
sat looking out of the window, obviously
troubled.

" Her game is blackmail," he declared at last.

" On whom? " the detective queried.

"Arthur Sloane, of course. She calculates
that he'll play to have her cease annoying his
daughter's fiance'. And she'll impress Arthur,
if Jarvis ever lets her get to him. Somehow,
she strangely compels credence."

" Not for me," Hastings objected, and did not

MRS. BRACE BEGINS 167

point out that Wilton's words might be taken
as an admission of Webster's guilt.

The judge himself might have seen that.

" I mean/' he qualified, " she seems too smart
a woman to put herself in a position where
ridicule will be sure to overtake her. And yet,
that's what she's doing — isn't she? "

The detective was whittling, dropping the
chips into the waste-basket. He spoke with a
deliberateness unusual even in him, framing
each sentence in his mind before giving it utter-
ance.

" I reckon, judge, you and I have had some
four or five talks — that is, not counting Satur-
day evening and yesterday at Sloanehurst.
That's about the extent of our acquaintance.
That right? "

"Why, yes," Wilton said, surprised by the
change of topic.

" I mention it," Hastings explained, " to show
how I've felt toward you — you interested me.
Excuse me if I speak plainly — you'll see why
later on — but you struck me as worth studying,
deep. And I thought you must have sized me
up, catalogued me one way or the other. You're
like me: waste no time with men who bore you.
I felt certain, if you'd been asked, you'd have
checked me off as reliable. Would you? "

" Unquestionably."

168 "NO CLUE!"

"And, if I was reliable then, I'm reliable
now. That's a fair assumption, ain't it? "

"Certainly." The judge laughed shortly, a
little embarrassed.

" That brings me to my point. You'll believe
me when I tell you my only interest in this
murder is to find the murderer, and, while I'm
doing it, to save the Sloanes as much as possible
from annoyance. You'll believe me, also, when
I say I've got to have all the facts if I'm to
work surely and fast. You recognize the force
of that, don't you? "

"Why, yes, Hastings." Wilton spoke impa-
tiently this time.

" Fine ! " The old man shot him a genial
glance over the steel-rimmed spectacles. " That's
the introduction. Here's the real thing: I've an
idea you could tell me more about what hap-
pened on the lawn Saturday night."

After his involuntary, immediate start of sur-
prise, Wilton tilted his head, slowly blowing the
cigar smoke from his pursed lips. He had a fine
air of reflection, careful thought.

" I can elaborate what I've already told you,"
he said, finally, "if that's what you mean — go
into greater detail."

He watched closely the edge of the detective's
face unhidden by his bending over the wood he
was cutting.

MRS. BRACE BEGINS 169

" I don't think elaboration could do much
good," Hastings objected. " I referred to new
stuff — some fact or facts you might have omitted,
unconsciously."

" Unconsciously? " Wilton echoed the word,
as a man does when his mind is overtaxed.

Hastings took it up.

" Or consciously, even," he said quickly, meet-
ing the other's eyes.

The judge moved sharply, bracing himself
against the back of the chair.

" What do you mean by that? "

" Skilled in the law yourself, thoroughly famil-
iar, with the rules of evidence, it's more than
possible that you might have reviewed matters
and decided that there were things which, if
they were known, would do harm instead of good
— obscure the truth, perhaps ; or hinder the hunt
for the guilty man instead of helping it on.
That's clear enough, isn't it? You might have
thought that? "

The look of sullen resentment in the judge's
face was unmistakable.

" Oh, say what you mean ! " he retorted
warmly. " What you're insinuating is that I've
lied!"

" It don't have to be called that."

" Well, then, that I, a judge, sworn to up-
hold the law and punish crime, have elected to

170 "NO CLUE!"

thwart the law and to cheat its officials of the
facts they should have. Is that what you
mean? "

" I'll be honest with you," Hastings admitted,
unmoved by the other's grand manner. " I've
wondered about that — whether you thought
a judge had a right to do a thing of that
sort."

Wilton's hand, clenched on the edge of the
desk, shook perceptibly.

"Did you think that, judge?" the detective
persisted.

The judge hesitated.

" It's a point I've never gone into," he said
finally, with intentional sarcasm.

Hastings snapped his knife-blade shut and
thrust the piece of wood into his pocket.

" Let's get away from this beating about the
bush," he suggested, voice on a sterner note.
" I don't want to irritate you unnecessarily,
judge. I came here for information — stuff I'm
more than anxious to get. And I go back to
that now : won't you tell me anything more about
the discovery of the woman's body by the two
of you — you and Webster? "

" No ; I won't ! I've covered the whole thing
— several times."

" Is there anything that you haven't told —
anything you've decided to suppress? "

MBS. BRACE BEGINS 171

Wilton got up from his chair and struck the
desk with his fist.

" See here, Hastings ! You're getting beside
yourself. Representing Miss Sloane doesn't
warrant your insulting her friends. Suppose
we consider this interview at an end. Some
other time, perhaps "

Hastings also had risen.

" Just a minute, judge ! " he interrupted, all
at once assuming the authoritative air that had
so amazed Wilton the night of the murder.
" You're suppressing something — and I know
it!"

"That's a lie!" Wilton retorted, the flush
deepening to crimson on his face.

" It ain't a lie," Hastings contradicted, hold-
ing his self-control. "And you watch your-
self! Don't you call me a liar again — not
as long as you live! You can't afford the
insult."

"Then, don't provoke it. Don't "

"What did Webster whisper to you, across
that corpse? " Hastings demanded, going nearer
to Wilton.

"What's this?" Wilton's tone was one of
consternation; the words might have been
spoken by a man stumbling on an unsuspected
horror in a dark room.

They stared at each other for several drag-

172 "NO CLUE!"

ging seconds. The detective waved a hand to-
ward the judge's chair.

" Sit down," he said, resuming his own seat.

There followed another pause, longer than the
first. The judge's breathing was laboured, audi-
ble. He lowered his eyes and passed his hand
across their thick lids. When he looked up
again, Hastings commanded him with unwaver-
ing, expectant gaze.

" I've made a mistake," Wilton began huskily,
and stopped.

" Yes? " Hastings said, unbending. " How? "

" I see it now. It was a matter of no im-
portance, in itself. I've exaggerated it, by my
silence, into disproportionate significance."
His tone changed to curiosity. " Who told you
about — the whispering? "

The detective was implacable, emphasizing his
dominance.

"First, what was it?" When Wilton still
hesitated, he repeated : " What did Webster say
when he put his hand over your mouth — to pre-
vent your outcry?"

The judge threw up his head, as if in sudden
resolve to be frank. He spoke more readily, with
a clumsy semblance of amiability.

"He said, < Don't do that! You'll frighten
Lucille ! ' I tried to nod my head, agreeing.
But he misunderstood the movement, I think.

MKS. BRACE BEGINS 173

He thought I meant to shout anyway; he tight-
ened his grip. ' Keep quiet ! Will you keep
quiet? ' he repeated two or three times. When
I made my meaning clear, he took his hand
away. He explained later what had occurred
to him the moment Arthur's light flashed on.
He said it came to him before he clearly realized
who I was. It

" I swear, Hastings, I hate to tell you this.
It suggests unjust suspicions. Of what value
are the wild ideas of a nervous man, all to
pieces anyway, when he stumbles on a dead
woman in the middle of the night? "

" They were valuable enough," Hastings
flicked him, "for you to cover them up — for
some reason. What were they? "

Wilton was puzzled by the detective's tone,
its abstruse insinuation. But he answered the
question.

"He said his first idea, the one that made
him think of Lucille, was that Arthur might
have had something to do with the murder."

" Why? Why did he think Sloane had killed
Mildred Brace?"

" Because she had been the cause of Lucille's
breaking her engagement with Berne — and Ar-
thur knew that. Arthur had been in a rage — — "

" All right ! " Hastings checked him suddenly,
and, getting to his feet, fell to pacing the room,

174 "NO CLUE!"

his eyes, always on Wilton. " I'm acquainted
with that part of it."

He paid no attention to Wilton's evident sur-
prise at that statement. He had a surprise of
his own to deal with : the unexpected similarity
of the judge's story with Lucille Sloane's theo-
rizing as to what Webster had whispered across
the body in the moment of its discovery. The
two statements were identical — a coincidence
that defied credulity.

He caught himself doubting Lucille. Had she
been theorizing, after all? Or had she relayed
to him words that Wilton had put into her
mouth? Then, remembering her grief, her des-
perate appeals to him for aid, he dismissed the
suspicion.

"I'd stake my life on her honesty," he de-
cided. " Her intuition gave her the correct solu-
tion— if Wilton's not lying now ! "

He put the obvious question : " Judge, am I
the first one to hear this — from you?" and re-
ceived the obvious answer : " You are. I didn't
volunteer it to you, did I? "

"All right. Now, did you believe Webster?
Wait a minute ! Did you believe his fear wasn't
for himself when he gagged you that way? "

"Yes; I did," replied Wilton, in a tone that
lacked sincerity. ,

" Do you believe it now? "

MKS. BRACE BEGINS 175

" If I didn't, do you think I'd have tried for
a moment to conceal what he said to me? "

" Why did you conceal it? "

" Because Arthur Sloane was my friend, and
his daughter's happiness would have been
ruined if I'd thrown further suspicion on him.
Besides, what I did conceal could have been of
no value to any detective or sheriff on earth.
It meant nothing, so long as I knew the boy's
sincerity — and his innocence as well as Ar-
thur's."

" But," Hastings persisted, " why all this con-
cern for Webster, after his engagement had been
broken? "

"How's that?" Wilton countered. "Oh, I
see! The break wasn't permanent. Arthur and
I had decided on that. We knew they'd get
together again."

Hastings halted in front of the judge's chair.

" Have you kept back anything else? " he de-
manded.

" Nothing," Wilton said, with a return of his
former sullenness. "And," he forced himself
to the avowal, " I'm sorry I kept that back. It's
nothing."

Hastings' manner changed on the instant. He
was once more cordial.

" All right, judge ! " he said heartily, consult-
ing his ponderous watch. " This is all between

176 "NO CLUE!"

us. I take it, you wouldn't want it known by
the sheriff, even now? " Wilton shook his head
in quick negation. "All right! He needn't —
if things go well. And the person I got it from
won't spread it around. — That satisfactory? "

The judge's smile, in spite of his best effort,
was devoid of friendliness. The dark flush that
persisted in his countenance told how hardly
he kept down his anger.

Hastings put on his hat and ambled toward
the door.

" By the way," he proclaimed an afterthought,
" I've got to ask one more favour, judge. If Mrs.
Brace troubles you again, will you let me know
about it, at the earliest possible moment? "

He went out, chuckling.

But the judge was as mystified as he was re-
sentful. He had detected in Hastings' manner,
he thought, the same self-satisfaction, the same
quiet elation, which he and Berne had observed
at the close of the music-room interview. Going
to the window, he addressed the summer sky :

" Who the devil does the old fool suspect —
Arthur or Berne? "

XIV

ME. CROWN FORMS AN ALLIANCE

**"W"F you've as much as five hundred dollars
at your disposal — pin-money savings, per-
haps— anything you can check on with-
out the knowledge of others, you can do it,"
Hastings urged, ending a long argument.

" I ! Take it to her myself? " Lucille still pro-
tested, although she could not refute his reason-
ings.

" It's the only way that would be effective —
and it wouldn't be so difficult. I had counted
on your courage — your unusual courage."

"But what will it accomplish? If I could
only see that, clearly!"

She was beginning to yield to his insistence.

They were in the rose garden, in the shade
of a little arbor from whose roof the great red
flowers drooped almost to the girl's hair. He
was acutely aware of the pathetic contrast be-
tween her white, ravaged face and the surround-
ing scene, the fragrance, the roses of every colour
swaying to the slow breeze of late afternoon, the
long, cool shadows. He found it hard to force
177

178 "NO CLUE!"

her to the plan, and would have abandoned it
but for the possibilities it presented to his mind.

" I've already touched on that," he applied
himself to her doubts. " I want you to trust
me there, to accept my solemn assurance that, if
Mrs. Brace accepts this money from you on
our terms, it will hasten my capture of the mur-
derer. I'll say more than that: you are my
only possible help in the matter. Won't you
believe me? "

She sat quite still, a long time, looking stead-
ily at him with unseeing eyes.

" I shall have to go to that dreadful woman's
apartment, be alone with her, make a secret
bargain," she enumerated the various parts of
her task, wonder and repugnance mingling in
her voice. " That horrible woman ! You say,
yourself, Mr. Hastings, she's horrible."

" Still," he repeated, " you can do it."

A little while ago she had cried out, both
hands clenched on the arm of the rustic bench,
her eyes opening wide in the startled look he
had come to know : " If I could do something,
anything, for Berne! Dr. Welles said only an
hour ago he had no more than an even chance
for his life. Half the time he can't speak! And
I'm responsible. I am! I know it. I try to
think I'm not. But I am!"

He recurred to that.

MR. CROWN FORMS AN ALLIANCE 179

" Dr. Welles said the ending of Mr. Webster's
suspense would be the best medicine for him.
And I think Webster would see that nobody
but you could do this — in the very nature of
things. The absolute secrecy required, the fact
that you buy her silence, pay her to cease her
accusations against Berne — don't you see? He'd
want you to do it."

That finished her resistance. She made him
repeat all his directions, precautions for
secrecy.

" I wish I could tell you how important it
is," he said. " And keep this in mind always :
I rely on your paying her the money without
even a suspicion of it getting abroad. If acci-
dents happen and you're seen entering the Wai-
man, what more natural than that you want
to ask this woman the meaning of her vague
threats against — against Sloanehurst? — But of
money, your real object, not a word! Nobody's
to have a hint of it."

" Oh, yes ; I see the necessity of that." But
she was distressed. " Suppose she refuses? "

Her altered frame of mind, an eagerness now
to succeed with the plan she had at first re-
fused, brought him again his thought of yester-
day : " If she were put to it — if she could save
only one and had to choose between father and
fiance', her choice would be for the fiance'."

180 " NO CLUE ! "

He answered her question. " She won't re-
fuse," he declared, with a confidence she could
not doubt. " If I thought she would, I'd almost
be willing to say we'd never find the man who
killed her daughter."

" When I think of Russell's alibi "

" Have we mentioned Russell? " he protested,
laughing away her fears. " Anyway, his old
alibi's no good— if that's what's troubling you.
Wait and see ! "

He was in high good humour.

In that same hour the woman for whom he
had planned this trap was busy with a scheme
of her own. Her object was to form an alliance
with Sheriff Crown. That gentleman, to use his
expressive phrase, had been "putting her over
the jumps " for the past forty minutes, bringing
to the work of cross-questioning h*er all the in-
telligence, craftiness and logic at his command.
The net result of his fusillade of interrogatories,
however, was exceedingly meagre.

As he sat, caressing his chin and thrusting
forward his bristly moustache, Mrs. Brace per-
ceived in his eyes a confession of failure. Al-
though he was far from suspecting it, he pre-
sented to her keen scrutiny an amusing figure.
She observed that his shoulders drooped, and
that, as he slowly produced a handkerchief and

ME. CKOWN FOKMS AN ALLIANCE 181

mopped his forehead, his movements were elo-
quent of gloom.

In fact, Mr. Crown felt himself at a loss. He
had come to the end of his resourcefulness in
the art of probing for facts. He was about to
take his departure, with the secret realization
that he had learned nothing new — unless an in-
creased admiration of Mrs. Brace's sharpness of
wit might be catalogued as knowledge.

She put his thought into language.

" You see, Mr. Crown, you're wasting your
time shouting at me, bullying me, accusing me
of protecting the murderer of my own daugh-
ter."

There was a new note in her voice, a hint,
ever so slight, of a willingness to be friendly.
He was not insensible to it. Hearing it, he put
himself on guard, wondering what it portended.

" I didn't say that," he contradicted, far from
graciousness. " I said you knew a whole lot
more about the murder than you'd tell — tell me
anyway."

" But why should I want to conceal anything
that might bring the man to justice? "

" Blessed if I know ! " he conceded, not with-
out signs of irritation.

So far as he could see, not a feature of her
face changed. The lifted eyebrows were still
high upon her forehead, interrogative and

182 "NO CLUE!"

mocking; the restless, gleaming eyes still drilled
into various parts of his person and attire; the
thin lips continued their moving pictures of
contempt. And yet, he saw, too, that she pre-
sented to him now another countenance.

The change was no more than a shadow; and
the shadow was so light that he could not be
sure of its meaning. He thought it was friend-
liness, but that opinion was dulled by recurrence
of his admiration of her " smartness." He
feared some imposition.

" You've adopted Mr. Hastings' absurd the-
ory," she said, as if she wondered. " You've
subscribed to it without question."

"What theory?"

" That I know who the guilty man is."

« Well? " He was still on guard.

" It surprises me — that's all — a man of your
intellect, your originality."

She sighed, marvelling at this addition to life's
conundrums.

"Why?" he asked, bluntly.

" I should never have thought you'd put your-
self in that position before the public. I mean,
letting him lead you around by the nose — figura-
tively."

Mr. Crown started forward in his chair, eyes
popped. He was indignant and surprised.

" Is that what they're saying? " he demanded.

ME. CROWN FORMS AN ALLIANCE 183

" Naturally," she said, and with the one word
laid it down as an impossibility that " they "
could have said anything else. " That's what
the reporters tell me."

"Well, I'll be— dog-goned!" The knuckle-
like chin dropped. "They're saying that, are
they? "

Disturbed as he was, he noticed that she re-
garded him with apparently genuine interest —
that, perhaps, she added to her interest a re-
gret that he had displayed no originality in the
investigation, a man of his intellect!

" They couldn't understand why you were
playing Hastings' game," she proceeded, " play-
ing it to his smallest instructions."

" Hastings' game! What the thunder are they
talking about? What do they mean, his game? "

" His desire to keep suspicion away from the
Sloanes and Mr. Webster. That's what they
hired him for— isn't it?"

" I guess it is — by gravy ! " Mr. Crown's long-
drawn sigh was distinctly tremulous.

" That old man pockets his fee when he
throws Gene Russell into jail. Why, then, isn't
it his game to convince you of Gene's guilt?
Why isn't it his game to persuade you of my
secret knowledge of Gene's guilt? Why "

" So, that's "

"Let me say what I started," she in turn

184 "NO CLUE!"

interrupted him. "As one of the reporters
pointed out, why isn't it his game to try to make
a fool of you? "

The smile with which she recommended that
rumour to his attention incensed him further.
It patronized him. It said, as openly as if she
had spoken the words : " I'm really very sorry
for you."

He dropped his hands to his widespread
knees, slid forward to the edge of his chair,
thrust his face closer to hers, peered into her
hard face for her meaning.

" Making a fool of me, is he? " he said in the
brutal key of un repressed rage.

A quick motion of her lifted brows, a curve
of her lower lip — indubitably, a new significance
of expression — stopped his outburst.

"By George!" he said, taken aback. "By
George! " he repeated, this time in a coarse ex-
ultation. He thrust himself still closer to her,
certain now of her meaning.

" What do you know? " He lowered his voice
and asked again : " Mrs. Brace, what do you
know? "

She moved back, farther from him. She was
not to be rushed into — anything. She made him
appreciate the difficulty of "getting next" to
her. He no longer felt fear of her imposing on
him — she had just exposed, for his benefit, how

MR. CROWN FORMS AN ALLIANCE 185

Hastings had played on his credulity! He felt
grateful to her for that. His only anxiety now
was that she might change her mind, might
refuse him the assistance which that new and
subtle expression had promised a moment ago.

" If I thought you'd use " she began,

broke off, and looked past his shoulder at the
opposite wall, the pupils of her eyes sharp points
of light, lips drawn to a line almost invisible.

Her evident prudence fired his eagerness.

" If I'd do what? " he asked. " If you thought
I'd— what? "

" Let me think," she requested.

He changed his posture, with a great show
of watching the sunset sky, and stole little
glances at her smooth, untroubled face. He be-
lieved now that she could put him on the trail
of the murderer. He confessed to himself, un-
reservedly, that Hastings had tricked him, held
him up to ridicule — to the ridicule of a nation,
for this crime held the interest of the entire
country. But here was his chance for revenge!
With this " smart " woman's help, he would out-
wit Hastings!

" If you'd use my ideas confidentially," she
said at last, eying him as if she speculated on
his honesty ; " if I were sure that "

" Why can't you be sure of it? " he broke in.
" My job is to catch the man who killed your

186 "NO CLUE!"

daughter. I've got two jobs. The other is to
show up old Hastings! Why wouldn't I do as
you ask — exactly as you ask? "

She tantalized him.

" And remember that what I say is ideas only,
not knowledge? "

"Sure! Certainly, Mrs. Brace."

"And, even when you arrest the right man,
say nothing of what you owe me for my sug-
gestions? You're the kind of man to want to
do that sort of thing — give me credit for help-
ing you."

Even that pleased him.

" If you specify silence, I give you my word
on it," he said, with a fragment of the pompous
manner he had brought into the apartment more
than an hour ago.

"You'll take my ideas, my theory, work on
it and never bring me into it — in any way? If
you make that promise, I'll tell you what I
think, what I'm certain is the answer to this
puzzle."

" Win or lose, right or wrong idea, you have
my oath on it."

" Very well ! " She said that with the air of
one embarking on a tremendous venture and
scorning all its possibilities of harm. " I shall
trust you fully. — First, let me sketch all the
known facts, everything connected with the

MR. CKOWN FORMS AN ALLIANCE 187

tragedy, and everything I know concerning the
conduct of the affected individuals since."

He was leaning far toward her once more, a
child-like impatience stamped on his face. As
she proceeded, his admiration grew.

For this, there was ample ground. The news-
paper paragraph Hastings had read that morn-
ing commenting on her mastery of all the de-
tails of the crime had scarcely done her justice.
Before she concluded, Crown had heard from
her lips little incidents that had gone over his
head. She put new and accurate meaning into
facts time and time again, speaking with the
particularity and vividness of an eye-witness.

" Now," she said, having reconstructed the
crime and described the subsequent behaviour
of the tragedy's principal actors; "now who's
guilty?"

" Exactly," echoed Crown, with a click in his
throat. " Who's guilty? What's your theory? "

She was silent, eyes downcast, her hands
smoothing the black, much-worn skirt over her
lean knees. Recital of the gruesome story, the
death of her only child, had left her unmoved,
had not quickened her breathing.

" In telling you that," she resumed, her rest-
less eyes striking his at rapid intervals, " I think
I'll put you in a position to get the right man
— if you'll act."

188 "NO CLUE!"

" Oh, I'll act! " he declared, largely. " Don't
bother your head about that! "

" Of course, it's only a theory "

"Yes; I know! And I'll keep it to myself."

"Very well. Arthur Sloane is prostrated,
can't be interviewed. He can't be interviewed,
for the simple reason that he's afraid he'll tell
what he knows. Why is he afraid of that? Be-
cause he knows too much, for his own comfort,
and too much for his daughter's comfort. How
does he know it? Because he saw enough night
before last to leave him sure of the murderer's
identity.

" He was the man who turned on the light,
showing Webster and Judge Wilton bending
over Mildred's body. It occurred at a time when
usually he is in his first sound sleep — from bro-
mides. Something must have happened to
awake him, an outcry, something. And yet, he
says he didn't see them — Wilton and Web-
ster."

" By gravy ! " exclaimed the sheriff, awe-
struck.

"Either," she continued, "Arthur Sloane
saw the murder done, or he looked out in time
to see who the murderer was. The facts sub-
stantiate that. They are corroborated by his
subsequent behaviour. Immediately after the
murder he was in a condition that couldn't be

MR. CROWN FORMS AN ALLIANCE 189

explained by the mere fact that he's a sufferer
from chronic nervousness. When Hastings
asked him to take a handkerchief, he would
have fallen to the ground but for the judge's
help. He couldn't hold an electric torch. And,
ever since, he's been in bed, afraid to talk. Why,
he even refused to talk to Hastings, the man he's
retained for the family's protection ! "

" He did, did he ! How do you know that,
Mrs. Brace?"

" Isn't it enough that I know it — or advance
it as a theory? "

" Did — I thought, possibly, Jarvis, the valet,
told you."

She ignored that.

" Now, as to the daughter of the house. There
was only one possible reason for Lucille Sloane's
hiring Hastings: she was afraid somebody in
the house, WTebster, of course, would be arrested.
Being in love with him, she never would have
suspected him unless there had been concrete,
undeniable evidence of his guilt. Do you grasp
that reasoning? "

" Sure, I do ! " Mr. Crown condemned him-
self. " WThat I'm wondering is why I didn't see
it long ago."

" She, too, you recall, was looking out of a
window — on that side of the hcuse — scarcely
fifteen yards from where the crime was done.

190 "NO CLUE!"

It's not hard to believe that she saw what her
father saw: the murder or the murderer.

" Mr. Crown, if you can make her or her father
talk, you'll get the truth of this thing, the truth
and the murderer.

"And look at Judge Wilton's part. You
asked me why I went to his office this morning.
I went because I'm sure he knows the truth.
Didn't he stay right at Webster's side when
old Hastings interviewed Webster yesterday?
Why? To keep Webster from letting out, in his
panic, a secret which both of them knew."

The sheriff's admiration by this time was
boundless. He felt driven to give it expression.

" Mrs. Brace, you're a loo-loo ! A loo-loo, by
gravy ! Sure, that was his reason. He couldn't
have had any other ! "

" As for Webster himself," she carried on her
exposition, without emotion, without the slight-
est recognition of her pupil's praise, " he proves
the correctness of everything we've said, so far.
That secret which the judge feared he would
reveal, that secret which old Hastings was
blundering after — that secret, Mr. Crown, was
such a danger to him that, to escape the ques-
tioning of even stupid old Hastings, he could
do nothing but crumple up on the floor and
feign illness, prostration. Why, don't you see,
he was afraid to talk ! "

ME. CEOWN FOEMS AN ALLIANCE 191

" Everything you say hits the mark ! " agreed
Crown, smiling happily. " Centre-shots ! Cen-
tre-shots! You've been right from the very be-
ginning. You tried to tell me all this yesterday
morning, and, fool that I was — fool that Hast-
ings was! " He switched to a summary of what
she had put into his mind : " It's right ! Webster
killed her, and Sloane and his daughter saw
him at it. Even Wilton knows it — and he a
judge! It seems impossible. By gravy! he
ought to be impeached."

A new idea struck him. Mrs. Brace, imper-
turbable, exhibiting no elation, was watching
him closely. She saw his sudden change of
countenance. He had thought : " She didn't rea-
son this out. Eussell saw the murder — the cow-
ard— and he's told her. He ran away from "

Another suspicion attacked him : " But that was
Jarvis' night off. Has she seen Jarvis? "

Impelled to put this fresh bewilderment into
words, he was stayed by the restless, brilliant
eyes with which she seemed to penetrate his
lumbering mind. He was afraid of losing her
cooperation. She was too valuable an ally to
affront. He kept quiet.

She brought him back to her purpose.

" Then, you agree with me? You think Web-
ster's guilty? "

" Think ! " He almost shouted his contempt

192 "NO CLUE!"

of the inadequate word. " Think ! I know !
Guilty? The man's black with guilt."

" I'm sure of it," she said, curiously skilful
in surrendering to him all credit for that vital
discovery. " What are you going to do — now
that you know? "

" Make him talk, turn him inside out ! Play-
ing sick, is he! I'm going back to Sloanehurst
this evening. I'm going to start something.
You can take this from me: Webster'll loosen
that tongue of his before another sun rises ! "

But that was not her design.

" You can't do it," she objected, her voice
heavy with disappointment. " Dr. Garnet, your
own coroner, says questioning will kill him. Dr.
Garnet's as thoroughly fooled as Hastings, and,"
she prodded him with suddenly sharp tone,
"you."

" That's right." He was crestfallen, plucking
at his chin. " That's hard to get around. But
I've got to get around it! I've got to show
results, Mrs. Brace. People, some of the papers
even, are already hinting that I'm too easy on
a rich man and his friend."

"Yes," she said, evenly. "And you told — I
understood you'd act, on our theory."

" I've got to ! I've got to act ! "

His confusion was manifest. He did not know
what to do, and he was silent, hoping for a

MB. CROWN FORMS AN ALLIANCE 193

suggestion from her. She let him wait. The
pause added to his embarrassment.

" What would — that is," he forced himself to
the appeal, " I was wondering — anything occur
to you? See any way out of it? "

" Of course, I know nothing about such pro-
cedure," she replied to that, slowly, as if she
groped for a new idea. " But, if you got the
proof from somewhere else, enough to warrant
the arrest of Webster " Her smile depre-
cated her probable ineptness. " If Arthur
Sloane "

He fairly fell upon the idea.

" Right ! " he said, clapping his hands together.
" Sloane's no dying man, is he? And he knows
the whole story. Right you are, Mrs. Brace!
He can shake and tremble and whine all he
pleases, but tonight he's my meat — my meat,
right! Talk? You bet he'll talk !"

She considered, looking at the opposite wall.
He was convinced that she examined the proj-
ect, viewing it from the standpoint of his in-
terest, seeking possible dangers of failure.
Nevertheless, he hurried her decision.

" It's the thing to do, isn't it? "

" I should think so," she said at last. " You,
with your mental forcefulness, your ability as
a questioner — why, I don't see how you can fail
to get at what he knows. Beside, you have the

194 "NO CLUE!"

element of surprise on your side. That will go
far toward sweeping him off his feet."

He was again conscious of his debt of grati-
tude to this woman, and tried to voice it.

" This is the first time," he declared, big with
confidence, " I've felt that I had the right end
of this case."

When she had closed the door on him, she
went back to the living room and set back in
its customary place the chair he had occupied.
Her own was where it always belonged. From
there she went into the bathroom and, as Hast-
ings had seen her do before, drew a glass of
water which she drank slowly.

Then, examining her hard, smooth face in the
bedroom mirror, she said aloud:

"Pretty soon, now, somebody will talk busi-
ness— with me."

There was no elation in her voice. But her
lips were, for a moment, thick and wet, chang-
ing her countenance into a picture of inordinate
greed.

XV

IN ARTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM

HASTINGS went back to Sloanehurst that
evening for another and more forceful
attempt to argue Arthur Sloane into
frankness. Like Mrs. Brace, he could not get
away from the definite conclusion that Lucille's
father was silent from fear of telling what he
knew. Moreover, he realized that, without a
closer connection with Sloane, his own handling
of the case was seriously impeded.

Lucille was on the front porch, evidently wait-
ing for him, although he had not notified her
in advance of his visit. She went hurriedly
down the steps and met him on the walk. When
he began an apology for having to annoy her
so frequently, she cut short his excuses.

" Oh, but I'm glad you're here — so glad! We
need your help. The sheriff's here."

She put her hand on his coat sleeve; he could
feel the tremour of it as she pulled, uncon-
sciously, on the cloth. She turned toward the
verandah steps.

" What's he doing? " he asked, detaining her.

195

196 "NO CLUE!"

" He's in father's room," she said in feverish
haste, " asking him all sorts of questions, say-
ing ridiculous things. Really, I'm afraid — for
father's health ! Can't you go in now? "

"Couldn't Judge Wilton manage him? Isn't
the judge here? "

" No. He came over at dinner time ; but he
went back to the Randalls'. Father didn't feel
up to talking to him."

Crown, she explained, had literally forced his
way into the bedroom, disregarding her pro-
tests and paying no attention to the pretence
of physical resistance displayed by Jarvis.

" The man seems insane ! " she said. " I want
you to make him leave father's room — please! "

She halted near the library door, leaving the
matter in Hastings' hands. Since entering the
house he had heard Crown's voice, raised to the
key of altercation; and now, when he stepped
into Sloane's room, the rush of words continued.

The sheriff, unaware of the newcomer, stood
near the bed, emphasizing his speech with rest-
less arms and violent motions of his head, as
if to galvanize into response the still and pros-
trate form before him. On the opposite side of
the bed stood the sepulchral Jarvis, flashing
malign looks at Crown, but chiefly busy, with
unshaking hands, preparing a beverage of some
sort for the sick man.

IN ARTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM 197

Sloane lay on his back, eyes closed, face under
the full glare of the reading 4ight. His expres-
sion indicated both boredom and physical suffer-
ing.

" — have to make an arrest ! " Crown was say-
ing. " You're making me take that action —
ain't you? I come in here, considerate as I
know how to be, and I ask you for a few facts.
Do you give 'em to me? Not by a long shot!
You lie there in that bed, and talk about leaping
angels, and say I bore you! Well, Mr. Sloane,
that won't get you a thing! You're where I
said you were: it's either Webster that will be
arrested — or yourself! Now, I'm giving you
another chance. I'm asking you what you saw;
and you can tell me — or take the consequences ! "

Hastings thought : " He's up that gum stump
of his again, and don't know how to quit talk-
ing."

Sloane made no answer.

" Well," thundered Crown. " I'm asking
you!"

"Moaning martyrs!" Sloane protested in a
thin, querulous tone. " Jarvis, the bromide."

" All right ! " the sheriff delivered his ulti-
matum. " I'll stick to what I said. Webster
may be too sick to talk, but not too sick to
have a warrant served on him. He'll be arrested
because you won't tell me "

198 "NO CLUE!"

Hastings spoke then.

" Gentlemen ! " he greeted pleasantly. " Mr.
Sloane, good evening. Mr. Sheriff — am I inter-
rupting a private confernce? "

" Fiery fiends ! " wailed Sloane. " Another ! "

Hastings gave his attention to Crown. He
was certain that the man, balked by Sloane's
refusal to " talk," would welcome an excuse for
leaving the room.

"Let me see you a moment, will you?" He
put a hand on the sheriff's shoulder, persuading :
" It's important, right now."

" But I want to know what Mr. Sloane's go-
ing to say," Crown blustered. " If he'll
tell "

Hastings stopped him with a whisper:
"That's exactly what he'll do— soon! "

He led the sheriff into the hall. They went
into the parlour.

" Now," Hastings began, in genial tone; "did
you get anything from him?"

" Not a dad-blamed thing ! " Crown was still
blustery. " But he'll talk before I'm through !
You can put your little bets down on that ! "

" All right. You've had your chance at him.
Better let me see him."

Crown looked his distrust. He was thinking
of Mrs. Brace's warning that this man had made
a fool of him.

IN ARTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM 199

" I'm not trying to put anything over on you,"
the detective assured him. " Fact is, I'm out
here for the newspaper men. They've had noth-
ing from him ; they've asked me to get his story.
I'll give it to you before I see them. What do
you say? "

Crown still hesitated.

" If, after you've heard it," Hastings added,
" you want to question him further, you can do
it, of course. But this way we take two shots
at it."

To that, the other finally agreed.

Hastings found Sloane smoking a cigarette,
his eyes still closed. Jarvis was behind a screen
near the door, now and then clinking glass
against glass as he worked.

The old man took a chair near the bed and
waited for Sloane to speak. He waited a long
time. Finally, the invalid looked at him from
under lowered lids, slyly, like a child peeping.
Hastings returned the look with a pleasant
smile, his shrewd eyes sparkling over the rims
of his spectacles.

" Well ! " Sloane said at last, in a whiney tone.
" What do you want? "

" First," Hastings apologized, " I want to say
how sorry I am I didn't make myself clearly
understood night before last when I told Miss
Sloane I'd act as mouthpiece for this house-

200 "NO CLUE!"

hold. I didn't mean I could invent a statement
for each of you, or for any of you. What I
did mean amounts to this: if you, for instance,
would tell me what you know — all you know —
about this murder, I could relay it to the re-
porters— and to the sheriff, who's been annoying
you so this evening. As "

" Flat-headed fiends ! " Sloane cut in, writhing
under the light coverlet. " Another harangue ! "

Hastings kept his temper.

" No harangue about it. But it's to come to
this, Mr. Sloane: you're handicapping me, and
the reporters and the sheriff don't trust you."

" Why? Why don't they trust me? " shrilled
Sloane, writhing again.

"Ill tell you in a very few words: because
you refused to testify at the inquest yesterday,
giving illness as an excuse. That's one reason.
The "

"Howling helions! W7asn't I ill? Didn't I
have enough to make me ill? — Jarvis, a little
whiskey ! "

" Dr. Garnet hasn't told them so — the re-
porters. He won't tell them so. In fact,"
Hastings said, with less show of cordiality,
" from all he said to me, I gather he doesn't
think you an ill man — that is, dangerously ill."

" And because of that, they say what, these
reporters, this sheriff? What? "

IN ARTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM 201

" They're in ugly mood, Mr. Sloane. They're
saying you're trying to protect — somebody — by
keeping still about a thing which you should
be the first to haul into daylight. That's it —
in a nutshell."

Sloane had stopped trembling. He sat up in
the bed and stared at the detective out of steady,
hard eyes. He waved away the whiskey Jarvis
held toward him.

" And you want what, Mr. Hastings? " he in-
quired, a curiously effective sarcasm in his
voice.

" A statement covering every second from the
time you waked up Saturday night until you
saw the body."

" A statement ! — Reporters ! " He was snarl-
ing on that. " What's got into you, anyway?
What are you trying to do — make people sus-
pect me of the murder — make 'em suspect
Berne? "

He threw away the cigarette and shook his
fist at Hastings. He gulped twice before he
could speak again; he seemed on the point of
choking.

" In an ugly mood, are they? Well, they can
stay in an ugly mood. You, too! And that
hydrophobiac sheriff! Quivering and crucified
saints! I've had enough of all of you — all of
you, understand! Get out of here! Get out! "

202 "NO CLUE!"

Although his voice was shrill, there was no
sound of weakness in it. The trembling that
attacked him was the result of anger, not of
nervousness.

Hastings rose, astounded by the outbreak.

" I'm afraid you don't realize the seriousness
of "

" Oh, get out of here !" Sloane interrupted
again. " You've imposed on my daughter with
your talk of being helpful, and all that rot,
but you can't hoodwink me. What the devil
do you mean by letting that sheriff come in
here and subject me to all this annoyance and
shock? You'd save us from unpleasantness! "

He spoke more slowly now, as if he cudgelled
his brain for the most biting sarcasm, the most
unbearable insolence.

" Don't realize the seriousness ! — Flat-headed
fiends ! — Are you any nearer the truth now than
you were at the start? — Try to understand this,
Mr. Hastings: you're discharged, fired! From
now on, I'm in charge of what goes on in this
house. If there's any trouble to be avoided, I'll
attend to it. Get that!— and get out! "

Hastings, opening his mouth for angry re-
tort, checked himself. He stood a moment silent,
shaken by the effort it cost him to maintain his
self-control.

" Humph! " Sloane's nasal, twangy exclama-

IN ARTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM 203

tion was clearly intended to provoke him fur-
ther.

But, without a word, he turned and left the
room. Passing the screen near the door, he
heard Jarvis snicker, a discreet echo of Sloane's
goading ridicule.

On his way back to the parlour, the old man
made up his mind to discount Sloane's be-
haviour.

" I've got to take a chance," he counselled
himself, " but I know I'm right in doing it.
A big responsibility — but I'm right! "

Then he submitted this report:

" He says nothing new, Crown. Far as I can
make out, nothing unusual waked him up that
night — except chronic nervousness; he turned
on that light to find some medicine; he knew
nothing of the murder until Judge Wilton called
him."

" Humph ! " growled Crown. " And you fall
for that!"

Hastings eyed him sternly. " It's the state-
ment I'm going to give to the reporters."

The sheriff was silent, irresolute. Hastings
congratulated himself on his earlier deduction:
that Crown, unable to frighten Sloane into com-
municativeness, was thankful for an excuse to
withdraw.

Hendricks had reported the two-hour confer-

204 "NO CLUE!"

ence between Crown and Mrs. Brace late that
afternoon. Hastings decided now : " The man's
in cahoots with her. His ally! And he won't
act until he's had another session with her. —
And she won't advise an arrest for a day or two
anyway. Her game is to make him play on
Sloane's nerves for a while. She advises
threats, not arrests — which suits me, to a T ! "

He fought down a chuckle, thinking of that
alliance.

Crown corroborated his reasoning.

" All right, Hastings," he said doggedly. " I'm
not going back to his room. I gave him his
chance. He can take the consequences."

" What consequences? "

" I'd hardly describe 'em to his personal rep-
resentative, would I ? But you can take this from
me: they'll come soon enough — and rough
enough ! "

Hastings made no reference to having been
dismissed by Sloane. He was glad when Crown
changed the subject.

" Hastings, you saw the reporters this after-
noon— I've been wondering — they asked me — did
they ask you whether you suspected the valet —
Jarvis?"

"Of what?"

« Killing her."

"No; they didn't ask me."

IN ARTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM 205

"Funny," said Crown, ill at ease. "They
asked me."

" So you said," Hastings reminded, looking
hard at him.

" Well ! " Crown blurted it out. " Do you
suspect him? Are you working on that line —
at all? "

Hastings paused. He had no desire to mis-
lead him. And yet, there was no reason for
confiding in him — and delay was at present the
Hastings plan.

"I'll tell you, Crown," he said, finally; " I'll
work on any line that can lead to the guilty
man. — What do you know? "

"Who? Me?" Crown's tone indicated the
absurdity of suspecting Jarvis. " Not a
thing."

But it gave Hastings food for thought. Was
Mrs. Brace in communication with Jarvis? And
did Crown know that? Was it possible that
Crown wanted to find out whether Hastings
was having Jarvis shadowed? How much of a
fool was the woman making of the sheriff, any-
way?

Another thing puzzled him: why did Mrs.
Brace suspect Arthur Sloane of withholding the
true story of what he had seen the night of
the murder? Hastings' suspicion, amounting to
certainty, came from his knowledge that the

206 " NO CLUE ! "

man's own daughter thought him deeply in-
volved in the crime. But Mrs. Brace — was she
clever enough to make that deduction from the
known facts? Or did she have more direct in-
formation from Sloanehurst than he had thought
possible?

He decided not to leave the sheriff entirely
subject to her schemes and suggestions. He
would give Mr. Crown something along another
line — a brake, as it were, on impulsive
action.

"You talk about arresting Webster right
away — or Sloane," he began, suddenly confiding.
" You wouldn't want to make a mistake — would
you? "

Crown rose to that. "Why? What do you
know — specially? "

"Well, not so much, maybe. But it's worth
thinking about. I'll give you the facts — confi-
dentially, of course. — Hub Hill's about a hun-
dred yards from this house, on the road to
Washington. When automobiles sink into it
hub-deep, they come out with a lot of mud on
their wheels — black, loamy mud. Ain't any
other mud like that Hub Hill mud anywhere
near here. It's just special and peculiar to Hub
Hill. That so?"

"Yes," agreed Crown, absorbed.

"All right. How, then, did Eugene Russell

IN ARTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM 207

keep black, Hub Hill mud on his shoes that
night if he went the four miles on foot to where
Otis picked him up?"

"Eh?" said Crown, chin fallen.

" By the time he'd run four miles, his shoes
would have been covered with the red mud of
that mile of ' dirt road ' or the thin, grey mud
of the three miles of pike — wouldn't they?
They'd have thrown off that Hub Hill mud
pretty quick, wouldn't they? "

"Thunder!" marvelled Crown. "That's
right ! And those shoes were in his room ; I saw
'em." He gurgled, far back in his throat. " Say!
How did he get from Hub Hill to where Otis
picked him up? "

" That's what I say," declared Hastings, very
bland. "How?"

To Lucille, after Crown's departure, the de-
tective declared his intention to " stand by " her,
to stay on the case. He repeated his statement
of yesterday: he suspected too much, and knew
too little, to give it up.

He told her of the responsibility he had as-
sumed in giving the sheriff the fictitious Sloane
statement. " That is, it's not fictitious, in itself ;
it's what your father has been saying. But I
told Crown, and I'm going to tell the newspaper
men, that he says it's all he knows, really. And
I hate to do it — because, honestly, Miss Sloane,

208 " NO CLUE ! "

I don't think it is all. I'm afraid he's deceiving
us."

She did not contradict that; it was her own
opinion.

" However," the old man made excuse, " I had
to do it — in view of things as they are. And
he's got to stick to it, now that I've made it
'official,' so to speak. Do you think he will?"

She did not see why not. She would explain
to him the importance, the necessity, of that
course.

" He's so mistaken in what he's doing ! " she
said. " I don't understand him — really. You
know how devoted to me he is. He called me
into his room again an hour or two ago and
tried to comfort me. He said he had reason to
know everything would come out as it should.
But he looked so — so uncertain ! — Oh, Mr. Hast-
ings, who did kill that woman?"

" I think I'll be able to prove who did it-
let's see," he spoke with a light cheerfulness, and
at the same time with sincerity; "I'll be able
to prove it in less than a week after Mrs. Brace
takes that money from you."

She said nothing to that, and he leaned for-
ward sharply, peering at her face, illegible to
him in the darkness of the verandah.

" So much depends on that, on you," he added.
" You won't fail me — tomorrow? "

IN AKTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM 209

" I'll do my best," she said, earnestly, strug-
gling against depression.

" She must take that money," he declared with
great emphasis. "She must!"

"And you think she will?"

" Miss Sloane, I know she will," he said, a
fatherly encouragement in his voice. " I'm sel-
dom mistaken in people; and I know I've judged
this woman correctly. Money's her weakness.
Love of it has destroyed her already. Offering
this bribe to anybody else situated as she is
would be ridiculous — but she — she'll take
it."

Lucille sat a long time on the verandah after
Hastings had gone. She was far more depressed
than he had suspected; she had to endure so
much, she thought — the suspense, which grew
heavier as time went by; the notoriety; Berne
Webster still in danger of his life; her father's
inexplicable pose of indifference toward every-
thing; the suspicions of the newspapers and
the public of both her father and Berne;
and the waiting, waiting, waiting — for
what?

A little moan escaped her.

What if Mrs. Brace did take the marked
money? What would that show? That she was
acting with criminal intent, Hastings had said.
But he had another and more definite object

210 "NO CLUE!"

in urging her to this undertaking; he expected
from it a vital development which he had not
explained — she was sure. She worried with that
idea.

Her confidence in Hastings had been without
qualification. But what was he doing? Any-
thing? Judge Wilton was forever saying,
"Trust Hastings; he's the man for this case."
And that was his reputation; people declared
that, if anybody could get to the bottom of all
this mystery, he could. Yet, two whole days
had passed since the murder, and he had just
said another week might be required to work
out his plan of detection — whatever that plan
was.

Another week of this ! She put her hot palms
to her hotter temples, striving for clarity of
thought. But she was dazed by her terror —
her isolated terror, for some of her thoughts
were such that she could share them with no-
body— not even Hastings.

" If the sheriff makes no arrest within the
next few days, I'll be out of the woods," he
had told her. " Delay is what I want."

There, again, was discouragement, for here
was -the sheriff threatening to serve a warrant
on Berne within the next twenty-four hours!
She had heard Crown make the threat, and to
her it had seemed absolutely final: unless her

IN ARTHUR SLOANE'S ROOM 211

father revealed something which Crown wanted,
whether her father knew it or not, Berne was
to be subjected to this humiliation, this added
blow to his chance for recovery!

She sprang up, throwing her hands wide and
staring blindly at the stars.

The woman whom she was to bribe cast a
deep shadow on her imagination. Sharing the
feeling of many others, she had reached the
reluctant conclusion that Mrs. Brace in some
way knew more than anybody else about the
murder and its motives. It was, she told her-
self, a horrid feeling, and without reason. But
she could not shake it off. To her, Mrs. Brace
was a figure of sinister power, an agent of
ugliness, waiting to do evil — waiting for
what? "

By a great effort, she steadied her jangled
nerves. Hastings was counting on her. And
work — even work in the dark — was preferable
to this idleness, this everlasting summing-up of
frightful possibilities without a ray of hope.
She would do her best to make that woman take
the money !

Tomorrow she would be of real service to
Berne Webster — she would atone, in some small
measure, for the sorrow she had brought upon
him, discarding him because of empty gossip!
— Would he continue to love her? — Perhaps, if

212 " NO CLUE ! "

she had not discarded him, Mildred Brace would
not have been murdered.

A groan escaped her. She fled into the house,
away from her thoughts.

XVI

THE BRIBE

IT was nine o'clock the following evening
when Lucille Sloane, sure that she had en-
tered the Walman unobserved, rang the bell
of Mrs. Brace's apartment. Her body felt re-
markably light and facile, as if she moved in
a tenuous, half-real atmosphere. There were
moments when she had the sensation of floating.
Her brain worked with extraordinary rapidity.
She was conscious of an unusually resourceful
intelligence, and performed a series of mental
gymnastics, framing in advance the sentences
she would use in the interview confronting her.
The constant thought at the back of her brain
was that she would succeed; she would speak
and act in such a way that Mrs. Brace would
take the money. She was buoyed by a fierce
determination to be repaid for all the suspense,
all the agony of heart, that had weighed her
down throughout this long, leaden-footed day
— the past twenty-four hours unproductive of a
single enlightening incident.

213

214 "NO CLUE!"

Mrs. Brace opened the door and, with a
scarcely perceptible nod of the head, motioned
her into the living room. Neither of them
spoke until they had seated themselves on the
chairs by the window. Even then, the silence
was prolonged, until Lucille realized that her
tongue was dry and uncomfortably large for
her mouth. An access of trembling shook her.
She tried to smile and knew that her lips were
twisting in a ghastly grin.

Mrs. Brace moved slowly to and fro on the
armless rocker, her swift, appraising eyes tak-
ing in her visitor's distress. The smooth face
wore its customary, inexpressive calm. Lucille,
striving desperately to arrive at some opinion
of what the woman thought, saw that she might
as well try to find emotion in a statue.

" I—I," the girl finally attained a quick, flur-
ried utterance, "want to thank you for — for
having this — this talk with me."

"What do you want to talk about, Miss
Sloane? "

The low, metallic voice was neither friendly
nor hostile. It expressed, more than anything
else, a sardonic, bullying self-sufficiency.

It both angered and encouraged Lucille. She
perceived the futility of polite, introductory
phrases here; she could go straight to her pur-
pose, be brutally frank. She gave Mrs. Brace

THE BRIBE 215

a brilliant, disarming smile, a proclamation of
fellowship. Her confidence was restored.

" I'm sure we can talk sensibly together, Mrs.
Brace," she explained, dissembling her indigna-
tion. " We can get down to business, at once."

" What business? " inquired the older woman,
with some of the manner Hastings had seen, an
air of lying in wait.

" I said, on the 'phone, it was something of
advantage to you — didn't I?"

" Yes ; you said that."

" And, of course, I want something from you."

« Naturally."

" I'll tell you what it is." Lucille spoke now
with cool precision, as yet untouched by the
horror she had expected to feel. " It's a matter
of money."

Mrs. Brace's tongue came out to the edge of
the thin line of her lips. Her nostrils quivered,
once, to the sharply indrawn breath. Her eyes
were more furtive.

" Money? " she echoed. " For what? "

" There's no good of my making long explana-
tions, Mrs. Brace," Lucille said. " I've read the
newspapers, every line of them, about — our trou-
ble. And I saw the references to your finances,
your lack of money."

" Yes? " Mrs. Brace's right hand lay on her
lap; the thumb of it began to move against the

216 " NO CLUE ! "

forefinger rapidly, the motion a woman makes
in feeling the texture of cloth — or the trick of
a bank clerk separating paper money.

" Yes. I read, also, what you said about the
tragedy. Today I noticed that the only note of
newness in the articles in the papers came from
you — from your saying that ' in a few days, three
or four at the outside ' — that was your language,
I'm quite sure — you'd produce evidence on which
an arrest would be made. I've intelligence
enough to see that the public?s interest in you
is so great, the sympathy for you is so great,
that your threats — I mean, predictions, or opin-
ions— colour everything that's written by the re-
porters. You see? "

"Do I see what?"

Despite her excellent pose of waiting with
nothing more than a polite interest, Lucille saw
in her a pronounced alteration. That was not
so much in her face as in her body. Her limbs
had a look of rigidity.

"Don't you see what I mean?" Lucille in-
sisted. " I see that you can make endless trou-
ble for us-^-for all of us at Sloanehurst. You
can make people believe Mr. Webster guilty, and
that father and I are shielding him. People
listen to what you say. They seem to be on
your side."

"Well?"

THE BRIBE 217

" I wondered if you wouldn't stop your in-
terviews— your accusations? "

The younger woman's eagerness, evident now
in the variety of her gestures and the rapid pro-
cession of pallour and flush across her cheeks,
persuaded Mrs. Brace that Lucille was acting
on an impulse of her own, not as an agent to
carry out another's well designed scheme. The
older woman, at that idea, felt safe. She asked :

" And you want — what? "

" I've come here to ask you to tell me all you
know, or to be quiet altogether."

" I'm afraid I don't understand — fully," re-
turned Mrs. Brace, with an exaggerated bewil-
derment. "Tell all I know?"

" That is, if you do know anything you haven't
told ! " Lucille urged her. " Oh, don't you see?
I'm saying to you that I want to put an end to
this dreadful suspense ! "

Mrs. Brace laughed disagreeably; her face
was harder, less human. " You mean I'm amus-
ing myself, exerting myself needlessly, as a mat-
ter of spite? Do you mean to tell me that? "

" No ! No ! " Lucille denied, impatient with
herself for lack of clearness. " I mean I'm sure
you're attacking an innocent man. And I'm
willing, I'm anxious — oh, I hope so much, Mrs.
Brace — to make an agreement with you — a finan-
cial arrangement " She paused the frac-

218 " NO CLUE ! "

tional part of a second on that ; and, seeing that
the other did not resent the term, she added:
" to pay you to stop it. Isn't that clear? "

" Yes ; that's clear."

" Understand me, please. What I ask is that
you say nothing more to the reporters, the sheriff
or the Washington police, that will have the
effect of hounding them on against Mr. Webster.
I want to eliminate from the situation all the
influence you've exerted to make Mr. Crown be-
lieve Mr. Webster's guilty and my father's pro-
tecting him."

" Let me think," Mrs. Brace said, coolly.

Lucille exulted inwardly, " She'll do it ! She'U
do it ! " The hard eyes dissected her eager face.
The girl drew back in her chair, thinking now:
" She suspects who sent me ! "

At last, the older woman spoke:

" The detective, Hastings, would never have
allowed you to come here, Miss Sloane. — Excuse
my frankness," she interjected, with a smile
she meant to be friendly ; " but you're frank with
me; we're not mincing matters; and I have to
be careful. — He'd have warned you that your
errand's practical confession of your knowledge
of something incriminating Berne Webster. If
you didn't suspect the man even more strongly
than I do, you'd never have been driven to —
this."

THE BRIBE 219

She leaned the rocker back and crossed her
knees, the movement throwing into high relief
the hard lankness of her figure. She gazed at
the wall, over Lucille's head, as she dealt with
the possibilities that presented themselves to
her analysis. Her manner was that of a certain
gloating enjoyment, a thinly covered, semi-or-
derly greediness.

" She's not even thinking of her daughter,"
Lucille thought, and went pale a moment.
" She's as bad as Mr. Hastings said — worse ! "

" Then, too," Mrs. Brace continued, " your
father discharged him last night."

Lucille remembered the detective's misgivings
about Jarvis; how else had this woman found
that out?

"And you've taken matters into your own
hands. — Did your father send you here — to
me? "

"Why, no!"

The other smiled slyly, the tip of her tongue
again visible, her eyebrows high in interroga-
tion. "Of course," she said; "you wouldn't
tell me if he had. He would have warned you
against that admission."

" It's Mr. Webster about whom I am most
concerned," Lucille reminded, sharpness in her
vibrant young voice. " My father's being an-
noyed is merely incidental."

220 "NO CLUE!"

"Oh, of course! Of course," Mrs. Brace
grinned, with broad sarcasm.

Lucille started. The meaning of that could
not be misunderstood; she charged that the
money was offered at Arthur Sloane's instiga-
tion and that the concern for Berne Webster
was merely pretence.

Mrs. Brace saw her anger, and placated it:

" Don't mind me, Miss Sloane. A woman
who's had to endure what I have — well, she
doesn't always think clearly."

" Perhaps not," Lucille assented ; but she was
aware of a sudden longing to be done with the
degrading work. " Now that we understand
each other, Mrs. Brace, what do you say? "

Mrs. Brace thought again.

" How much? " she asked at last, her lips
thickening. " How much, Miss Sloane, do you
think my silence is worth? "

Lucille took a roll of bills from her handbag.
The woman's chair slid forward, answering to
the forward-leaning weight of her new posture.
She was lightly rubbing her palms together, as,
with head a little bowed, she stared at the money
in the younger woman's hand.

"I have here five hundred dollars," Lucille
began.

"What!"

Mrs. Brace said that roughly ; and, in violent

THE BRIBE 221

anger, drew back, the legs of her chair grating
on the floor.

For a moment Lucille gazed at her, uncom-
prehending.

" Oh ! " she said, uncertainly. " You mean —
it isn't enough? "

" Enough ! " Mrs. Brace's rage and disap-
pointment grew, her lowered brows a straight
line close down to her eyes.

" But I could get more ! " Lucille exclaimed,
struggling with disgust. " This," she added,
with ready invention, " can serve as a part pay-
ment, a promise of "

" Ah-h ! " the older woman exclaimed.
" That's different. I misunderstood."

She put down the signals of her wrath, suc-
ceeding in that readjustment so promptly that
Lucille stared at her in undisguised amazement.

"You must pardon me, Miss Sloane. I
thought you were making me the victim of your
ridicule, some heartless joke."

" Then, we can come to an agreement? That
is, if this money is the first "

She broke the sentence. Mrs. Brace had put
up her hand, and now held her head to one side,
listening.

There was a step clearly audible outside, in
the main hall. The next moment the doorbell
rang. They sat motionless. When the bell

222 " NO CLUE ! "

rang again, Mrs. Brace informed her with a look
that she would not answer it.

But the ringing continued, became a pro-
longed jangle. It got on Lucille's already
strained nerves.

" Suppose you slip into the bedroom," Mrs.
Brace whispered.

" Oh, no ! " Lucille whispered back.

She was weighed down by black premonition ;
she hoped Mrs. Brace would not open the door.

The bell rang again.

"You'll have to!" Mrs. Brace said at last.
" I won't let anybody in. I have to answer it! "

" You'll send them away — whoever it is — at
once? "

" At once. I don't want you seen here, any
more than you want to be seen ! "

Lucille started toward the bedroom. At the
first step she took, Mrs. Brace put a hand on
her arm.

" That money ! " she demanded, in a low whis-
per. " I'll take it.'J

"And do what I asked — stop attacking us?"

"Yes. Yes!"

Lucille gave her the money.

There were no lights in the bedroom. Lucille,
for fear of stumbling or making a noise, stood
to one side of the door-frame, close to the wall.

Mrs. Brace's footsteps stopped. There was

THE BRIBE 223

the click of the opening door. Then, there
came to Lucille the high-pitched, querulous voice
which she had been afraid she would hear.
It was her father's.

XVII

" THE WHOLE TRUTH "

"A >TRS- BRACE> g°od evening.— May I
IY/1 come in? "

Then followed the sound of foot-
steps, and the closing of the door.

" I shan't detain you long, Mrs. Brace." They
were still in the hall. " May I come in? "

" Certainly/' The tardy assent was the per-
fection of indifference.

They entered the living room. Lucille, with-
out using her eyes, knew that her father was
standing just within the doorway, glancing
around with his slight squint, working his lips
nervously, his head thrust forward.

"Ah-h!" his shrill drawl, although he kept
it low, carried back to Lucille. " All alone —
may I ask? " He went toward the chairs by
the window. " That is, I hope to have — well —
rather a confidential little talk with you."

Mrs. Brace resumed her place on the armless
rocker after she had moved a chair forward for
him. Lucille heard it grate on the floor. Cer-
tain that he had taken it, she looked into the

224

" THE WHOLE TRUTH " 225

room. Her intuition was correct; Mrs. Brace
had placed it so that his back was turned to
both the bedroom door and the door into the
entry. This made her escape possible.

The relief she got from the thought was of
a violent nature. It came to her like a blow,
almost forcing a gasp from her constricted
throat. If she could tiptoe without sound a dis-
tance of eighteen feet, a matter of six or seven
steps, she could leave the apartment without
his knowledge.

To that she was doubly urged. In the first
place, Hastings' warning drummed upon her
brain ; he had specified the importance of keep-
ing even her father in ignorance of her errand.

Upon that came another reason for flight, her
fear of hearing what her father would say. A
wave of nausea weakened her. She bowed down,
there in the dark, under the burden of her sus-
picion: he had come to do, for quite a different
reason, what she had done! She kept away from
definite analysis of his motive. Fear for Berne,
or fear for himself, it was equally horrible to
her consideration. ,

" I admire your spirit, Mrs. Brace," he was
saying, in ingratiating tone; " and your shrewd-
ness. I've followed all you said, in the papers.
And I'm in hopes that we may "

He stopped, and Lucille, judging from the thin

226 " NO CLUE ! "

edges of sounds that she caught, had a mental
picture of his peering over his shoulder. He re-
sumed:

" I must apologize, I'm sure. But you'll real-
ize my concern for secrecy — after I've explained.
May I — ah-h-h — do you mind if I look about, for
possible hearers? "

" It's unnecessary," came the calm, metallic
assurance. " I've no objection to your search-
ing my apartment, if you insist." She laughed,
a mirthless deprecation of his timidity, and
coolly put herself at his disposal in another
sentence: "I've sense enough to form an idea
of what you'll propose; and I'd scarcely want
others to hear it — would I?"

" Ah-h-h ! " he drawled, expressing a grudging
disposition to accept her assurance. " Certainly
not. — Well, that's very reasonable — and oblig-
ing, I'm sure."

Again by the thin fringes of sound, Lucille
got information of his settling into his chair.

" Why," he began ; " why, in the name of all
the unfathomable, inscrutable angels "

" First, Mr. Sloane," Mrs. Brace interrupted
him — and Lucille heard the rattle of a neVs-
paper ; " as a preface to our — shall we say con-
ference?— our conference, then, let me read you
this summary of my position. — That is, if you
care to understand my position thoroughly."

" THE WHOLE TRUTH " 227

She was far from her habitual quietness, rat-
tling the newspaper incessantly. The noise, Lu-
cille realized, would hang as a curtain between
her father's ears and the possible sounds of
her progress from the bedroom door to the
entry.

Stealing a glance into the living room, she
saw his back and, over his stooped shoulders,
Mrs. Brace's calm face. In that instant, the
newspaper shook more violently — enough, she
thought, to signal cooperation.

She sickened again at sight of that woman
about to dispense bought favours to her father.
The impulse to step forth and proclaim her
presence rose strongly within her; but she was
turned from it by fear that her interruption
might produce disastrous results. After all, she
was not certain of his intention.

She knew, however, that at any moment he
might insist on satisfying himself, by a tour
of inspection, that he was safe from being over-
heard. She hesitated no longer. She would try
to get away.

" Look at this, Mr. Sloane, if you please,"
Mrs. Brace was saying ; " notice how the items
are made to stand out, each in a paragraph of
large type."

She held the paper so that Sloane -bent for-
ward, and, against his will, was held to joint

228 "NO CLUE!"

perusal while she read aloud. The curtain of
protecting noise thus was thickened.

" ' That Mrs. Brace has knowledge of the fol-
lowing facts/ " the harsh, colourless voice was
reading.

Lucille began her escape. She moved with an
agony of precaution, taking steps only a few
inches long, her arms held out from her sides
to avoid unnecessary rustling of her clothing.
She went on the balls of her feet, keeping the
heels of her shoes always free of the floor, each
step a slow torture.

Her breathing stopped — a hysterical con-
traction of her chest prevented breathing. Her
face burned like fire. Her head felt crowded,
as if the blood tried to ooze through the con-
fining scalp. There was a gre^t roaring in her
ears. The pulse in her temples was like the
blows of sledges.

Once, midway of the distance, as she stood
lightly balanced, with arms outstretched, some-
thing went wrong with her equilibrium. She
started forward as she had often done when a
child, with the sensation of falling on her face.
Her skirt billowed out in front of her. If she
had had any breath in her, she would have cried
out.

But the automatisms of her body worked bet-
ter than her overtaxed brain. Her right foot

" THE WHOLE TRUTH " 229

went out easily and softly — she marvelled at
that independent motion of her leg — and, taking
up the falling weight of her body, restored her
balance.

Mrs. Brace's voice had not faltered, although
she must have seen the misstep. Arthur Sloane's
bowed shoulders had not stirred. Mrs. Brace
continued the printed enumeration of her stores
of knowledge.

Lucille took another step. She was safe ! — al-
most. There remained but a yard of her pain-
ful progress. One more step, she comforted her-
self, would put her on the threshold of the entry
door, and from there to the corridor door,
shielded by the entry wall from possible observa-
tion by her father, would be an easy busi-
ness.

She completed that last step. On the thresh-
old, she had to turn her body through an arc
of ninety degress, unless she backed out of the
door. This she was afraid to do ; her heel might
meet an obstruction; a raised plank of the
flooring, even, would mean an alarming
noise.

She began to turn. The reading continued.
The whole journey from door to door, in spite
of the anguished care of every step, had con-
sumed scarcely a minute. She was turning, the
balancing arms outstretched. Deep down in her

230 "NO CLUE!"

chest there was the beginning of a sensation,
muscles relaxing, the promise of a long breath
of relief.

Her left hand — or, perhaps, her elbow ; in the
blinding, benumbing flash of consternation, she
did not know which — touched the pile of maga-
zines on the table that was set against the door-
frame. The magazines did not fall to the floor,
but the fluttering of the loose cover of the one
on top made a noise.

She fled, taking with her the flashing memory
of the first stirring of her father's figure and
the crackle of the paper in Mrs. Brace's hand.
In two light steps she was at the corridor door.
Her hands found the latch and turned it. She
ran down the stairs with rapid, skimming steps,
the door clicking softly shut as she made the
turn on the next landing.

Her exit had been wonderfully quiet. She
knew this, in spite of the fact that her strain-
ing senses had exaggerated the flutter of the
magazine cover and the click of the door into a
terrifying volume of sound. It was entirely pos-
sible that Mrs. Brace had been able to persuade
her father that he had heard nothing more than
some outside noise. She was certain that he
had not seen her.

She crossed the dim, narrow lobby of the Wai-
man so quickly, and so quietly, that the girl

"THE WHOLE TKUTH" 231

at the telephone board did not look in her direc-
tion.

Once in the street, she was seized by desire to
confide to Hastings the story of her experience.
She decided to act on the impulse.

He was at first more concerned with her phys-
ical condition than with what she had to tell.
He saw how near she was to the breaking point.

" My dear child ! " he said, in the tone of
fatherly solicitude which she had learned to
like. "Comfort before conference! Here, this
chair by the window — so — and this wreck of a
fan, can you use it? Fine! Now, cool your
flushed face in this thin, very thin stream of
a breeze — feel it? A glass of water? — just for
the tinkling of ice? That's better, isn't it? "

The only light in the room was the reading
lamp, under a dark-green shade, and from this
little island of illumination there ran out a
chaotic sea of shadows, huge waves of them,
mounting the height of the book-shelves and
breaking irregularly on the ceiling.

In the dimness, as he walked back and forth
hunting for the fan or bringing her the water,
he looked weirdly large — like, she thought dully,
a fairy giant curiously draped. But the serenity
of his expression touched her. She was glad
she had come.

232 " NO CLUE ! "

While she told her story, he stood in front
of her, encouraging her with a smile or a nod
now and then, or ambled with soft step among
the shadows, always keeping his eyes upon her.
For the moment, her tired spirit was freshened
by his lavish praise of the manner in which she
had accomplished her undertaking. Following
that, his ready sympathy made it easier for her
to discuss her fear that her father had planned
to bribe Mrs. Brace.

Nevertheless, the effort taxed her severely.
At the end of it, she leaned back and closed
her eyes, only to open them with a start of fright
at the resultant dizziness. The sensation of bod-
ily lightness had left her. Her limbs felt
sheathed in metal. An acute, throbbing pain
racked her head. She was too weary to combat
the depression which was like a cold, freezing
hand at her heart.

"You don't say anything!" she complained
weakly.

He stood near her chair, gazing thoughtfully
before him.

" I'm trying to understand it," he said ; " why
your father did that. You're right, of course.
He went there to pay her to keep quiet. But
why? "

He looked at her closely.

"Could it be possible," he put the inquiry

" THE WHOLE TKUTH " 233

at last, " that he knew her before the murder? "

" I've asked him," she said. " No ; he never
had heard of her — neither he nor Judge Wilton.
I even persuaded him to question Jarvis about
that. It was the same; Jarvis never had — until
last Sunday morning."

" You think of everything ! " he congratulated
her.

"No! Oh, no!"

Some quick and overmastering emotion broke
down the last of her endurance. Whether it was
a new and finer appreciation of his persistent,
untiring search for the guilty man, or the re-
alization of how sincerely he liked her, giving
her credit for a frankness she had not exer-
cised— whatever the pivotal consideration was,
she felt that she could no longer deceive him.

She closed her lips tightly, to keep back the
rising sobs, and regarded him with questioning,
fearful eyes.

" WThat is it? " he asked gently, reading her
appealing look.

" I've a confession to make," she said miser-
ably.

He refused to treat it as a tragedy.

" But it can't be very bad ! " he exclaimed
pleasantly. " When we're overwrought, imagi-
nation's like a lantern swinging in the wind,
changing the size of everything every second."

234 "NO CLUE!"

" But it is bad ! " she insisted. " I haven't
been fair. I couldn't bring myself to tell you
this. I tried to think you'd get along without
it!"

"And now?"

She answered him with an outward calmness
which was, in reality, emotional dullness. She
had suffered so much that to feel vividly was
beyond her strength.

" You have the right to know it," she said,
looking at him out of brilliant, unwinking
eyes. " It's about father. He was out there
— on the lawn — before he turned on the light
in his room. I heard him come in, a minute
before Berne went down the back stairs and out
to the lawn. And I heard him go to his window
and stand there, looking out, at least five long
minutes before he flashed on his light."

He waited, thinking she might have more to
tell. Construing his silence as reproof, she said,
without changing either her expression or her
voice :

" I know — it's awful. I should have told you.
Perhaps, I've done great harm."

" You've been very brave," he consoled her,
with infinite tenderness. " But it happens that
I'd already satisfied myself on that point. I
knew he'd been out there."

She was dumb, incapable of reacting to his

" THE WHOLE TRUTH " 235

words. Even the fact that he was smiling, with
genuine amusement, did not affect her.

" Here comes the grotesque element, the comi-
cal, that's involved in so many tragedies," he
explained. " Your father's weakness for ' cure '
of nervousness, and his shrinking from the ridi-
cule he's suffered because of it — there's the ex-
planation of why he was out there that night."

She could not see significance in that, but
neither could she summon energy to say so.
She wondered vaguely why he thought it funny.

" That night — rather, the early morning hours
following — while the rest of you were in the
library, I looked through his room, and I found
a pair of straw sandals in the closet — such as
a man could slip on and off without having to
bend down to adjust them. And they were wet,
inside and out.

" Sunday morning, when Judge Wilton and I
were at his bedside, I saw on the table a ' quack'
pamphlet on the ' dew ' treatment for nervous-
ness, the benefit of the ' wet, cooling grass ' upon
the feet at night. You know the kind of thing.
So "

" Oh-h-h ! " she breathed, tremulous and weak.
" So that's why he was out there ! Why didn't
I think? Oh, how I've suspected him of "

" But remember," he warned ; " that's why
he went out. We still don't know what he —

236 "NO CLUE!"

what happened after he got out there — or why
he's refused to say that he ever was out there.
When we think of this, and other things, and,
too, his call tonight on Mrs. Brace, for bribery
— leaving what we thought was a sickbed — — "

" But he's been up all day ! " she corrected.

" And yet," he said, and stopped, reflecting.

" Tell me," she implored; " tell me, Mr. Hast-
ings, do you suspect my father — or not — of
the ? "

He answered her unfinished question with a
solemn, painstaking care:

" Miss Sloane, you're not one who would want
to be misled. You can bear the truth. I'd be
foolish to say that he's not under suspicion.
He is. Any one of the men there that night
may have committed the murder. Webster, your
father, Wilton — only there, suspicion seems to-
tally gratuitous — Eugene Russell, Jarvis — I've
heard things about him — any one of them may
have struck that blow — may have."

" And father," she said, in a grieved bewilder-
ment, " has paid Mrs. Brace to stop saying she
suspects Berne," she shuddered, facing the al-
ternative, " or himself ! "

" You see," he framed the conclusion for her,
" how hard he makes it for us to keep him out
of trouble — if that gets out. He's put his hand
on the live wire of circumstantial evidence, a

" THE WHOLE TRUTH " 237

wire that too often thrashes about, striking the
wrong man."

"And Berne?" she cried out. "I think I
could stand anything if only I knew "

But this time the mutinous sobs came crowd-
ing past her lips. She could not finish the
inquiry she had begun.

XVIII

THE MAN WHO RODE AWAY

IT was early in the afternoon of Wednesday
when Mr. Hastings, responding to the pro-
longed ringing of his telephone, took the
receiver off the hook and found himself in com-
munication with the sheriff of Alexandria
county. This was not the vacillating, veering
sheriff who had spent nearly four days accept-
ing the hints of a detective or sitting, chameleon-
minded, at the feet of a designing woman. Here
was an impressive and self-appreciative gentle-
man, one who delighted in his own deductive
powers and relished their results.

He said so. His confidence fairly rattled the
wire. His words annihilated space grandly and
leaped into the old man's receptive ear with
sizzling and electric effect. Mr. Crown, trium-
phant, was glad to inform others thai: he was
making a hit with himself.

"Hello! That you, Hastings? Well, old fel-
low, I don't like to annoy you with an up-to-
date rendition of ' I told you so ! ' — but it's come

THE MAN WHO EODE AWAY 239

out, to the last syllable, exactly as I said it
would — from the very first ! "

Ensued a pause, for dramatic effect. The de-
tective did not break it.

"Waiting, are you? Well, here she goes;
Kussell's alibi's been knocked into a thousand
pieces! It's blown up! It's gone glimmering!
—What do you think of that? "

Hastings refrained from replying that he had
regarded such an event as highly probable. In-
stead, he inquired:

" And that simplifies things? "

"Does it!" exploded Mr. Crown. "I'm
getting to you a few minutes ahead of the after-
noon, papers. You'll see it all there." An apol-
ogetic laugh came over the wire. " You'll
excuse me, I know; I had to do this thing up
right, put on the finishing touches before you
even guessed what was going on. I've wound
up the whole business. The Washington police
nabbed Russell an hour ago, on my orders.

"'Simplifies things?' I should say so! I
guess you can call 'em ' simplified ' when a mur-
der's been committed and the murderer's wait-
ing to step into my little ring-tum-fi-diddle-dee
of a country jail! * No clue to this mystery/
the papers have been saying! What's the use
of a clue when you know a guy's guilty? That's
what I've been whistling all along ! "

240 "NO CLUE!"

" But the alibi? " Hastings prompted. " You
say it's blown up?"

" Blown ! Gone ! Result of my sending out
those circulars asking if any automobile parties
passed along the Sloanehurst road the murder
night. Remember? "

"Yes." The old man recalled having made
that suggestion, but did not say so.

" This morning the chief of police of York —
York, Pennsylvania — wired me. I got him by
long-distance right away. He gave me the story,
details absolutely right and straight, all veri-
fied— and everything. A York man, named
Stevens, saw a newspaper account, for the first
time this morning, of the murder. He and four
other fellows were in a car that went up Hub
Hill that night a little after eleven — a few min-
utes after.— Hear that?"

" Yes. Go on."

" Stevens was on the back seat. They went
up the hill on low — terrible piece of road, he
calls it — they were no more than crawling. He
says he was the only sober man in the crowd —
been out on a jollification tour of ten days. He
saw a man slide on to the running board on his
side of the car as they were creeping up the
hill. The rest of the party was singing, having
a high old time.

" Stevens said he never said a word, just

THE MAN WHO RODE AWAY 241

watched the guy on the running board, and
planned to crack him on the head with an empty
beer bottle when they got on the straight road
and were hitting up a good clip — just playing,
you understand.

" After he'd watched the guy a while and was
trying to fish up a beer bottle from the bottom
of the car, the chauffeur slowed down and hol-
lered back to him on the back seat that he
wanted to stop and look at his radiator — it
was about to blow up, too hot. He'd been
burning the dust on that stretch of good
road.

" When he slowed down, the guy on the run-
ning board slipped off. Stevens says he rolled
down a bank."

The jubilant Mr. Crown stopped, for
breath.

"That's all right, far as it goes," Hastings
said ; " but does he identify that man as Rus-
sell? " ,

" To the last hair on his head ! " replied the
sheriff. u Stevens' description of the fellow is
Russell all over — all over! Just to show you
how good it is, take this: Stevens describe the
clothes Russell wore, and says what Otis said:
he'd lost his hat."

" Stevens got a good look at him? "

" Says the headlights were full on him as

242 "NO CLUE!"

he stood on one side of the road, there on Hub
Hill, waiting to slide on the running board. —
And this Stevens is a shrewd guy, the York
chief says. I guess his story plugs Russell's lies,
shoots that alibi so full of holes it makes a sifter
look like a piece of sheet-iron!

" That car went up Hub Hill at seven minutes
past eleven — that means Russell had plenty of
time to kill the girl after the rain stopped and
to get out on the road and slip on to that run-
ning board. And the car slowed up, where he
rolled off the running board, at eighteen min-
utes past eleven.

" Time's right, location's right, identification's
right! — Pretty sweet, ain't it, old fellow? Con-
gratulate me, don't you? Congratulate me, even
if it does step on all those mysterious theories
of yours — that right? "

Hastings bestowed the desired felicitations
upon the exuberant conqueror of crime.

Turning from the telephone, he gazed a long
time at the piece of grey envelope on the table
before him. He had clung to his belief that,
in those fragments of words, was to be found
a clue to the solution of the mystery. He picked
up his knife and fell to whittling.

Outside in the street a newsboy set up an
abrupt, blaring din, shouting sensational head-
lines:

THE MAN WHO EODE AWAY 243

"SLOANEHURST MYSTERY SOLVED!—
RUSSELL THE MURDERER !— ALIBI A
FAKE!"

The old man considered grimly, the various
effects of this development in the case — Lucille
Sloane's unbounded relief mingled with censure
of him for having added to her fears, and es-
pecially for having subjected her to the ordeal
of last night's experience with Mrs. Brace — the
adverse criticism from both press and public be-
cause of his refusal to join in the first attacks
upon Russell, Arthur Sloane's complacency at
never having treated him with common courtesy.

His thoughts went to Mrs. Brace and her
blackmail schemes, as he had interpreted or sus-
pected them.

" If I'd had a little more time," he reflected,
" I might have put my hand on "

His eyes rested on the envelope flap. His
mind flashed to another and new idea. His
muscles stiffened ; he put his hands on the arms
of his chair and slowly lifted himself up, the
knife dropping from his fingers and clattering
on the floor. He stood erect and held both hands
aloft, a gesture of wide and growing wonder.

"Gripes!" he said aloud.

He picked up the grey paper with a hand that
trembled. His pendent cheeks puffed out like
those of a man blowing a horn. He stared at

244 "NO CLUE!"

the paper again, before restoring it to its en-
velope, which he put back into one of his pockets.

" Gripes ! " he said again. " It's a place! Pur-
suit! That's where the "

He became a whirlwind of action, covered the
floor with springy step. Taking a book of colos-
sal size from a shelf, he whirled the pages, run-
ning his finger down a column while he mur-
mured, " Pursuit^-P-u-r— P-u— P-u "

But there was no such name in the postal di-
rectory. He went back to older directories. He
began to worry. Was there no such postoffice
as Pursuit? He went to other books, whirling
the pages, running down column after col-
umn. And at last he got the information he
sought.

Consulting a railroad folder, he found a train
schedule that caused him to look at his watch.

"Twenty-five minutes," he figured. " I'm go-
ing!"

He telephoned for a cab.

Then, seating himself at the table, he tore a
sheet from a scratch-pad and wrote:

"Don't lose sight of Mrs. Brace. Disregard
Russell's arrest.

" Hendricks : the Sloanehurst people are mem-
bers of the Arlington Golf Club. Get a look at
golf bags there. Did one, or two, contain piece
or pieces of a bed-slat?

THE MAN WHO RODE AWAY 245

"Gore: check up on Mrs. B.'s use of money.

" I'll be back Sunday."

He sealed the envelope into which he put that,
and, addressing it to Hendricks, left it lying on
the table.

At the station he bought the afternoon news-
papers and turned to Eugene Russell's state-
ment, made to the reporters immediately after
his arrest. It ran:

" I repeat that I'm innocent of the murder.
Of course, I made a mistake in omitting all
mention of my having ridden the first four miles
from Sloanehurst. But, being innocent and
knowing the weight of the circumstantial evi-
dence against me, I could not resist the tempta-
tion to make my alibi good. I neither com-
mitted that murder nor witnessed it. The story
I told at the inquest of what happened to me
and what I did at Sloanehurst stands. It is the
truth."

XIX

" PURSUIT ! "

RETURNING from his trip Sunday morn*
ing, the detective, after a brief conference
with Hendricks, had gone immediately to
Mrs. Brace's apartment. She sat now, still and
watchful, on the armless rocker by the window,
waiting for him to disclose the object of his
visit. Except the lifted, faintly interrogating
eyebrows, there was nothing in her face indica-
tive of what she thought.

He caught himself comparing her to a statue,
forever seated on the low-backed, uncomfortable
chair, awaiting without emotion or alteration
of feature the outcome of her evil scheming.
Her hardness gave him the impression of some-
thing hammered on, beaten into an ugly pattern.

Having that imperturbability to overcome, he
struck his first blow with surprising directness.

" I'm just back from Pursuit," he said.

That was the first speech by either of them
since the monosyllabic greeting at the door. He
saw that she had prepared herself for such an
announcement; but the way she took it re-

246

"PUKSUIT!" 247

minded him of a door shaken by the impact of
a terrific blow. A little shiver, for all her force
of repression, moved her from head to foot.

" You are? " she responded, her voice con-
trolled, the hard face untouched by the shock
to which her body had responded.

" Yes ; I got back half an hour ago, and, ex-
cept for one of my assistants, you're the first
person I've seen." When that drew no comment
from her, he added : " I want you to remember
that — later on."

He began to whittle.

" Why? " she asked with genuine curiosity,
after a pause.

" Because it may be well for you to know that
I'm dealing with you alone, and fairly. — I got
all the facts concerning you/'

" Concerning me? " Her tone intimated
doubt.

" Now, Mrs. Brace ! " he exclaimed, disapprov-
ing her apparent intention. " You're surely not
going to pretend ignorance — or innocence ! "

She crossed her knees, and, putting her left
forearm across her body, rested her right elbow
in that hand. She began to rock very gently,
her posture causing her to lean forward and
giving her a look of continual but polite ques-
tioning.

" If you want to talk to me," she said, her

248 " NO CLUE ! "

voice free of all feeling, " you'll have to tell me
what it's about."

" All right; I will," he returned. " You'll re-
member, I take it, my asking you to tell me the
meaning of the marks on the flap of the grey
envelope. I'll admit I was slow, criminally slow,
in coming to the conclusion that * Pursuit ! ' re-
ferred to a place rather than an act. But I got
it finally — and I found Pursuit — not much left
of it now ; it's not even a postoffice.

" But it's discoverable," he continued on a
sterner note, and began to shave long, slender
chips from his block of wood. " I'll give you
the high lights: young Dalton was killed — his
murderer made a run for it — but you, a young
widow then, in whose presence the thing was
done, smoothed matters out. You swore it was
a matter of self-defence. The result was that,
after a few half-hearted attempts to locate the
fugitive, the pursuit was given up."

" Very well. But why bring that story here
— now? What's its significance? "

He stared at her in amazement. Her thin,
sensitive lips were drawn back at the corners,
enough to make her mouth look a trifle wider
— and enough to suggest dimly that their motion
was the start of a vindictive grimace. Other-
wise, she was unmoved, unresponsive to the open
threat of what he had said.

"PURSUIT!" 249

" Let me finish," he retorted. " An unfortu-
nate feature, for you, was that you seemed to
have made money out of the tragedy. In strait-
ened circumstances previously, you began to
spend freely — comparatively speaking — a few
days after the murderer's disappearance. In
fact, bribery was hinted; you had to leave the
village. See any significance in that? " he con-
cluded, with irony.

" Suppose you explain it," she said, still cool.

" The significance is in the strengthening of
the theory I've had throughout the whole week
that's passed since your daughter was killed at
Sloanehurst."

" What's that? "

She stopped rocking; her eyes played a fiery
tattoo on every feature of his face.

" Your daughter's death was the unexpected
result of your attempts to blackmail young Dai-
ton's murderer. You, being afraid of him, and
not confessing that timidity to Mildred, per-
suaded her to approach him — in person."

" I ! Afraid of him ! " she objected, aroused
at last.

Her brows were lowered, a heavy line above
her furtive, swift eyes; her nostrils fluttered
nervously.

"Granting your absurd theory," she con-
tinued, " why should I have feared him? What

250 " NO CLUE ! "

had he done — except strike to save his own
life? "

" You forget, Mrs. Brace," he corrected.
" That body showed twenty-nine wounds, twenty-
eight of them unnecessary — if the first was in-
flicted in mere self-defence. It was horrible
mutilation."

" So ! " she ridiculed, with obvious effort.
" You picture him as a butcher."

" Precisely. And you, having seen to what
lengths his murderous fury could take him, were
afraid to face him — even after your long, long
search had located him again. Let's be sensible,
Mrs. Brace. Let's give the facts of this business
a hearing.

" You had come to Washington and located
him at last. But, after receiving several de-
mands from you, he'd stopped reading your let-
ters— sent them back unopened. Consequently,
in order for you to make an appointment with
him, he had to be communicated with in a hand-
writing he didn't know. Hence, your daugh-
ter had to write the letter making that ap-
pointment a week ago last night. Then, how-
ever "

"What makes you think "

"Then, however," he concluded, overbearing
her with his voice, "you hadn't the courage to
face him — out there, in the dark, alone. You

"PUKSUIT!" 251

persuaded Mildred to go — in your place. And
he killed her."

"Ha!" The mocking exclamation sounded
as though it had been pounded out of her by
a blow upon her back. " What makes you say
that? Where do you get that? Who put that
into your head? "

She volleyed those questions at him with in-
describable rapidity, her lips drawn back from
her teeth, her brows straining far up toward
the line of her hair. The profound disgust with
which he viewed her did not affect her. She
darted to and fro in her mind, running about
in the waste and tumult of her momentary con-
fusion, seeking the best thing to say, the best
policy to adopt, for her own ends.

He had had time to determine that much when
her gift of self-possession reasserted itself. She
forced her lips back to their thin line, and
steadied herself. He could see the vibrant taut-
ness of her whole body, exemplified in the rigid-
ity with which she held her crossed knees, one
crushed upon the other.

" I know, I think, what misled you," she an*
swered her own question. " You've talked to
Gene Russell, of course. He may have heard —
I think he did hear — Mildred and me discussing
the mailing of a letter that Friday night."

"He did," Hastings said, firmly.

252 "NO CLUE!"

" But he couldn't have heard anything to war-
rant your theory, Mr. Hastings. I merely made
fun of her wavering after she'd once said she'd
confront Berne Webster again with her appeal
for fair play."

He inspected her with an emotion that was
a mingling of incredulity and repugnant won-
der.

" It's no use, Mrs. Brace," he told her. " Rus-
sell didn't see the name of the man to whom the
letter was addressed. I saw him last Sunday
afternoon. He told me he took the name for
granted, because Mildred had taunted him, say-
ing it went to Webster. As a matter of fact,
he wanted to see if Webster was at Sloanehurst
and fastened his eyes for a fleeting glimpse on
that word — and on that alone. Besides, there
are facts to prove that the letter did not go to
Webster. — Do you see how your fancied secur-
ity falls away? "

u Let me think," she said, her tone flat and
impersonal.

She was silent, her restless eyes gazing at
the wall over his head. He watched her, and
glanced only at intervals at the wood he was
aimlessly shaving.

" Of course," she said, after a while, looking
at him with a speculative, deliberating air,
"you've deduced and pieced this together.

"PURSUIT!" 253

You've a woman's intuition — comprehension of
motives, feelings."

She was silent again.

" Pieced what together? " he asked.

" It's plain enough, isn't it? You began with
your suspicion that my need of money was
heavier in my mind than grief at Mildred's
death. On that, you built up — well, all you've
just said."

" It was mote than a suspicion," he corrected.
" It was knowledge — that everything you did,
after her death, was intended to help along your
scheme to — we'll say, to get money."

" Still," she persisted shrewdly, " you felt the
necessity of proving I'd blackmail — if that's the
word you want to use."

"How?" he put in quickly. "Prove it,
how?"

" That's why you sent that girl here with the
five hundred. I see it now; although, at the
time, I didn't." She laughed, a short, bitter
note. " Perhaps, the money, or my need of it,
kept me from thinking straight."

" Well? "

" Of course," she made the admission calmly,
" as soon as I took the hush money, your theory
seemed sound — the whole of it : my motives and
identity of the murderer."

She was thinking with a concentration so in-

254 "NO CLUE!"

tense that the signs of it resembled physical ex-
ertion. Moisture beaded the upper part of her
forehead. He could see the muscles of her face
respond to the locking of her jaws.

" But there's nothing against me," she began
again, and, moved by his expression, qualified:
" nothing that I can be held for, in the
courts."

" You've decided that, have you? "
« You'll admit it," she said. " There's noth-
ing— there can be nothing — to disprove my state-
ment that Dalton's death was provoked. I hold
the key to that — I alone. That being true, I
couldn't be prosecuted in Pursuit as ' accessory
after the fact.' "

" Yes," he agreed. « That's true."
" And here," she concluded, without a hint of
triumph, even without a special show of interest,
" I can't be proceeded against for blackmail.
That money, from both of them, was a gift. I
hadn't asked for it, much less demanded it. I,"
she said with an assured arrogance, "hadn't got
that far. — So, you see, Mr. Hastings, I'm far
from frightened."

He found nothing to say to that shameless
but unassailable declaration. Also, he was
aware that she entertained, and sought solution
of, a problem, the question of how best to satisfy
her implacable determination to make the man

"PURSUIT!" 255

pay. That purpose occupied all her mind, now
that her money greed was frustrated.

It was on this that he had calculated. It ex-
plained his going to her before confronting the
murderer. He had felt certain that her per-
verted desire to " get even " would force her
into the strange position of helping him.

He broke the silence with a careful attempt
to guide her thoughts:

" But don't fool yourself, Mrs. Brace. You've
got out of this all you'll ever get, financially —
every cent. And you're in an unpleasant sit-
uation— an outcast, perhaps. People don't
stand for your line of stuff, your behav-
iour."

She did not resent that. Making a desperate
mental search for the best way to serve her
hard self-interest, he thought, she was imper-
vious to insult.

" I know," she said, to his immense relief.
" I've been considering the only remaining
point."

"What's that?"

" The sure way to make him suffer as hor-
ribly as possible."

He pretended absorption in his carving.

"Why shouldn't he have provided me with
money when I asked it? " she demanded, at
last.

256 "NO CLUE!"

The new quality of her speech brought his
head up with a jerk. Instead of colourless
harshness, it had a warm fury. It was not that
she spoke loudly or on a high key; but it had
an unbridled, self-indulgent sound. He got the
impression that she put off all censorship from
either her feeling or her expression.

" That wasn't much to ask — as long as he con-
tinued his life of ease, of luxury, of safety — as
long as I left out of consideration the debt he
couldn't pay, the debt that was impossible of
payment."

Alien as the thing seemed in connection with
her, he grasped it. She thought that she had
once loved the man.

"The matter of personal feeling?" he
asked.

"Yes. When he left Pursuit, he destroyed
the better part of me — what you would call the
good part."

She said that without sentimentalism, with-
out making it a plea for sympathy ; she had bet-
ter sense, he saw, than to imagine that she could
arouse sympathy on that ground.

" And," she continued, with intense malignity,
" what was so monstrous in my asking him for
money? I asked him for no payment of what
he really owes me. That's a debt he can't pay !
My beauty, destroyed, withered and covered over

"PURSUIT!" 257

with the hard mask of the features you see now ;
my capacity for happiness, dead, swallowed up
in my long, long devotion to my purpose to find
him again — those things, man as you are, you
realize are beyond the scope of payment or re-
payment ! "

Without rising to a standing position, she
leaned so far forward that her weight was all
on her feet, and, although her figure retained
the posture of one seated on a chair, she was
in fact independent of support from it, and
held herself crouching in front of him,
taut, a tremor in her limbs because of the
strain.

Her hands were held out toward him, the tips
of her stiffened, half-closed fingers less than a
foot from his face. Her brows were drawn so
high that the skin of her forehead twitched, as
if pulled upward by another's hand. It was
with difficulty that he compelled himself to wit-
ness the climax of her rage. Only his need of
what she knew kept him still.

" Money ! " she said, her lean arms in con-
tinual motion before him. " You're right, there.
I wanted money. I made up my mind I'd have
it. It was such a purpose of mine, so strongly
grown into my whole being, that even Mildred's
death couldn't lessen or dislodge it. And there
was more than the want of money in my never

258 "NO CLUE!"

letting loose of my intention to find him. He
couldn't strip me bare and get away! You've
understood me pretty well. You know it was
written, on the books, that he and I should come
together again — no matter how far he went, or
how cleverly!

" And I see now ! " she gave him her decision,
and, as she did so, rose to an upright position,
her hands at her sides going half-shut and open,
half-shut and open, as if she made mental pic-
tures of the closing in of her long pursuit. " I'll
say what you want me to say. Confront him ;
put me face to face with him, and I'll say the
letter went to him. Oh, never fear! I'll say
the appropriate thing, and the convincing thing
— appropriately convincing ! "

Her eyes glittered, countering his searching
glance, as she stood over him, her body flung
a little forward from the waist, her arms
busy with their quick, angular gesticula-
tion.

"When?" he asked. "When will you do
that? "

"Now," she answered instantly. "Now! —
" Now! — Oh, don't look surprised. I've thought
of this possibility. My God ! " she said with a
bitterness that startled him. "I've thought of
every possibility, every possible crook and quirk
of this business."

" PURSUIT ! " 259

She was struck by his slowness in responding
to her offer.

" But you," she asked ; " are you sure — have
you the proof?"

"Thanks," he said drily. "You needn't be
uneasy about that. — Now, if I may do a little tel-
ephoning, we'll start."

He went a step from her and turned
back.

" By the way," he stipulated, " that little mat-
ter of the five hundred — you needn't refer to it.
I mean it will have to be left out. It's not neces-
sary."

" No; it isn't," she agreed, with perfect indif-
ference. "And it's spent."

When he had telephoned to Sloanehurst and
the sheriff's office, he found her with her hat
on, ready to accompany him.

As they stepped out of the Walman, she saw
the automobile waiting for them. She stopped,
a new rage darting from her eyes. He thought
she would go back. After a brief hesitation,
however, she gave a short, ugly laugh.

" You were as sure as that, were you ! " she
belittled herself. "Had the car wait— to take
me there ! "

" By no means," he denied. " I hoped you'd
go— that's all."

"That's better," she said, determined to as-

260 "NO CLUE!"

sert her individuality of action. " You're not
forcing me into this, you know. I'm doing it,
after thinking it out to the last detail — for my
own satisfaction."

XX

DENIAL OP THE CHARGB

HASTINGS, fully appreciating the value
of surprise, had instructed Mrs. Brace
to communicate none of the new devel-
opments to anybody until he asked for them.
Reaching Sloanehurst, he went alone to the
library, leaving her in the parlour to battle as
best she might with the sheriff's anxious curi-
osity.

Arthur Sloane and Judge Wilton gave him
cool welcome, parading for his benefit an obvious
and insolent boredom. Although uninvited to
sit down, he caught up a chair and swung it
lightly into such position that, when he seated
himself, he faced them across the table. He
was smiling, enough to indicate a general sat-
isfaction with the world.

There was in his bearing, however, that which
carried them back to their midnight session with
him immediately following the discovery of Mil-
dred Brace's body. The smile did not lessen
his look of unquestionable power; his words
were sharp, clipped-off.

261

262 "NO CLUE!"

" I take it," he said briskly, untouched by
their demeanour of indifference, "you gentle-
men will be interested in the fact that I've
cleared up this mystery."

" Ah-h-h ! " drawled Sloane. " Again? "

" What do you mean by ' again '? " he asked,
good-naturedly.

" Crown, the sheriff, accomplished it four days
ago, I'm credibly informed."

" He made a mistake."

"Ah?" Sloane ridiculed.

" Yes. ' Ah ! ' " Hastings took him up curtly,
and, with a quick turn of his head, addressed
himself to Wilton: "Judge, I've been to Pur-
suit."

When he said that, his head was thrown back
so that he squinted at Wilton down the line of
his nose, under the rims of his spectacles.

"Pursuit!"

Wilton's echo of the word was explosive. He
had been leaning back in his chair, eying the
detective from under lowered lids, and drawing
deep, prolonged puffs from his cigar. But, with
the response to Hastings' announcement, he sat
up and leaned forward, putting his elbows on
the rim of the table. It was an awkward atti-
tude, compelling him to extend his neck and
turn his face upward in order to meet the other's
glance.

DENIAL OP THE CHARGE 263

" Yes," Hastings said, after a measurable
pause. "Interested in that?"

" Not at all," Wilton replied, plainly alarmed,
and fubbed out his cigar with forefinger and
thumb, oblivious to the fact that he dropped a
little shower of fire on the table cover.

" I'll trouble you to observe, Mr. Sloane,"
Hastings put in, " that, being excited, the
judge's first impulse is to extinguish his cigar:
it's a habit of his. — Now, judge, in Pursuit I
heard a lot about you — a lot."

"All right— what?"

He made the inquiry reluctantly, as if under
compulsion of the detective's glance.

" The Dalton case — and your part in it."

" You know about that, do you? "

" All about it," Hastings said, in a way that
made doubt impossible; Sloane, even, bewildered
as he was, got the impression of his ruthless
certainty.

Wilton did not contest it.

" I struck in self-defence," he excused himself
wearily, like a man taking up a task against his
will. " It would be ridiculous to call that mur-
der. No jury would have convicted me — none
would now, if given the truth."

" But the body showed twenty-nine wounds,"
Hastings pressed him, "the marks of twenty-
nine separate thrusts of that knife."

264 "NO CLUE!"

"Yes; that's true.— Yes, I'll tell you about
that, you and Arthur — if you'd care to hear? "

"That's what I'm here for," Hastings said,
settling in his chair. He was thinking : " He
didn't expect this. He's unprepared ! "

Sloane, who had been on the point of resent-
ing this unbelievable attack on his friend, was
struck dumb by Wilton's calm acknowledg-
ment of the charge. From long habit, he took
the cap off the smelling-salts with which he
had been toying when Hastings came in, but
his shaking hand could not lift the bottle to his
nose. Wilton guilty of a murder, years ago!
He drew a long, shuddering breath and huddled
in his chair.

Wilton rose clumsily and walked heavily to
the door opening into the hall. He put his hand
on the knob but did not turn it. He repeated
the performance at the door opening into
Sloane's room. In all this he was unconsciona-
bly slow, moving in the manner of a blind man,
feeling his way about and fumbling both knobs.

When he came back to the table, his shoulders
were hunched to the front and downward,
crowding his chest. His face looked larger, each
separate feature of it throbbing coarsely to the
pumping of his heart. Pink threads stood out
on the white of his eyeballs. When the back
of his neck pressed against his collar, the effect

DENIAL OF THE CHARGE 265

was to give the lower half of the back of his
head an odd appearance of inflation or puffi-

Hastings had never seen a man struggle so
to contain himself.

" Suffering angels ! " Sloane sympathized
shrilly. " What's the matter, Tom? "

"All right— it's all right," he assured, his
voice still low, but so resonant and harsh that
it sounded like the thrumming of a viol string.

He seated himself, moving his chair several
times, adjusting it to a proper angle to the table.
In the end, he sat close to the table rim, hunched
heavily on his elbows, and looked straight at
Hastings.

" But, since you've been to Pursuit, what do
you imply, or say? " he asked, the words scrap-
ing, as though his throat had been roughened
with a file.

"That you killed Mildred Brace," Hastings
answered, also leaning forward, to give the accu-
sation weight.

"I! I killed her! " Wilton's teeth went to-
gether with a sharp click ; the table sagged under
his weight. " I deny it. I deny it ! " He ripped
out an oath. " This man's crazy, Arthur! He's
dragged up a mistake, a tragedy, of my youth,
and now has the effrontery to use it as a reason
for suspecting me of murder ! "

266 "NO CLUE!"

" Exactly ! " chimed Sloane, in tremulous re-
lief. " Shivering saints ! Why haven't you said
so long ago, Tom?"

" I didn't give him credit for the wild insan-
ity he's showing," said Wilton thickly.

Whatever had been his first impulse, however
near he had been to trying to explain away all
blame in the Dalton murder, it was clear to
Hastings now that he intended to rely on flat
denial of his connection with the death of Mil-
dred Brace. He had, perhaps, decided that ex-
planation was too difficult.

Seeing his indecision, Hastings turned on
Sloane.

" You've been exceedingly offensive to me on
several occasions, Mr. Sloane. And I've had
enough of it. Now, I've got the facts to show
that you're as foolish in the selection of your
friends as in making enemies. I'm about to
charge this man Wilton with murder. He killed
Mildred Brace, and I can prove it. If you want
to hear the facts back of this mystery; if you
want the stuff that will enable you to decide
whether you'll stand by him or against him, you
can have it ! "

Before Sloane could recover from his surprise
at the old man's hot resentment, Wilton said,
with an air of careless contempt:

"Oh, we've got to deal with what he says,

DENIAL OF THE CHARGE 267

Arthur. I'd rather answer it here than with an
audience."

" The reading public, for instance? " Hastings
retorted, and added : " It may interest you, Mr.
Sloane, to know that you gave me my first sus-
picion of him. When you stepped back from
the handkerchief I held out to you — remember,
as I was kneeling over the body, and the servant
laughed at you? — I jammed it into Wilton's
right-hand coat-pocket.

" Later, when I got it back from him, I saw
clinging to it a few cigar ashes and two small
particles of wet tobacco. He had had in that
pocket a cigar stump wet from his saliva.

11 When he began then his story of finding the
body, he said, ' I'd been smoking my good-night
cigar; this is what's left of it.' As he said that,
he pointed to the unlit — remember that, unlit —
cigar stump between his teeth. He made it a
point to emphasize the fact that so little time
had elapsed between his finding the body and
his giving the alarm that he hadn't smoked up
the cigar, and also he hadn't taken time to put
his hand to his mouth, take out the cigar and
throw it away.

" It was one of the over-fine little touches that
a guilty man tries to pile on his scheme for
appearing innocent. But what are the facts?

" Just now, as soon as he got excited, he me-

268 "NO CLUE!"

chanically fubbed out his cigar. It's a habit of
his — whenever he's in a close corner. He did
it during the interview I had with him and
Webster in the music room last Sunday morning
« — when, in fact, something dangerous to him
came up. He did it again when I was talking
to him in his office, following a visit from Mrs.
Brace.

" There you have the beginning of my sus-
picion. Why had he gone out of his way to put
a cigar stump into his pocket that night, and
to explain that he had had it in his mouth all
the time? When he came into my room, to wake
me up, he had no cigar in his mouth. But,
when you and I rounded the corner of the porch
and first saw him kneeling over the body, he
had one hand in his right-hand coat-pocket.
And, when we stood beside him, he had put a
half-smoked, unlit cigar into his mouth.

" You see my point, clearly? Instead of hav-
ing had the cigar in his mouth and having kept
it there while he found the body and reported
the discovery to us, the truth is this: he had
fubbed out the cigar when he met Mildred Brace
on the lawn, and it had occurred to his calculat-
ing mind that it would be well, when he chose
to give the alarm, to use the cigar stunt as evi-
dence that he hadn't been engaged in quarrelling
with and murdering a woman.

DENIAL OF THE CHARGE 269

" He was right in his opinion that the average
man doesn't go on calmly smoking while en-
gaged in such activities. He was wrong in let-
ting us discover where he'd carried the stump
until he needed it.

" He had put it into that pocket, but, after
committing the murder, he wasn't quite as calm
as he'd expected to be — something had gone
wrong; Webster had appeared on the scene —
and the cigar wasn't restored to his mouth until
you and I first reached the body.

" Here's my handkerchief, showing the ashes
and the pieces of cigar tobacco on it, just as
it was when he handed it back to me."

He took from one of his pockets a tissue-paper
parcel, and, unwrapping it, handed it to Sloane.

"Ah-h-h — that's what it shows," Sloane ad-
mitted, bending over the handkerchief.

Wilton welcomed that with a laugh which he
meant to be lightly contemptuous.

" See here, Arthur! " he objected. " I'm per-
fectly willing to listen to any sane statement
this man may make, but "

"You said you wanted to hear this!" Hast-
ing stopped him. " I'm fair about it. I've told
you why I began to watch you. I've got
more."

" You need it," Sloane complained. " If it's
all that thin "

270 "NO CLUE!"

" Don't shout too soon," Hastings interrupted
again. " Mr. Sloane, this man's been working
against me from the start. Think a moment,
and you'll realize it. While he was telling your
daughter and a whole lot of other people that
I was the only man to handle the case, he was
slipping you the quiet instruction to avoid me,
not to confide in me, not to tell me a single
thing. Isn't that true?"

" We-ell, he did say the best way for me to
avoid all possibility of being involved in the
thing was not to talk to anybody."

" I knew it ! " Hastings declared, giving his
contempt full play. "And he persuaded you
that you might have seen — might, mind you —
and he gave you the suggestion skilfully, more
by indirection than by flat statement — that you
might have seen Berne Webster out there on the
lawn that night, when you were uncertain, when
you feared it yourself — a little. Isn't that
true? "

Sloane looked at him with widening eyes, his
lips trembling.

"Come, Mr. Sloane! Let's play fair, didn't
he?"

"We-ell, yes."

"And," Hastings continued, thumping the
table with a heavy hand to drive home the points
of his statement, "he persuaded you to offer

DENIAL OF THE CHAKGE 271

that money to Mrs. Brace — last Tuesday night.
— Didn't he? — And that matches his slippery
cunning in pretending he was saving Webster
by hiding the fact that Webster's hand had
gagged him when they found the body. He fig-
ured his willingness to help somebody else would
keep suspicion away from him. I "

" Kot! All rot! " Wilton broke in. " Where
do you think you are, Arthur, on the witness
stand? He'll have you saying white's black in
a minute."

" Mr. Sloane," the detective said, getting to
his feet, " he induced you to pay money to Mrs.
Brace — while it's the colour of blackmail, it
won't be a matter for prosecution; you gave it
to her, in a sense, unsolicited — but he induced
you to do that because he knew she was out
for blackmail. He hoped that, if you bought
her off, she wouldn't pursue him farther."

" Farther ! " echoed Sloane. " What do you
mean by that?"

"Why, man! Don't you see? Money was
back of all that tragedy. He murdered the girl
because she had come here to renew her mother's
attempts at blackmail on him! Not content
with duping you, with handling you as if you'd
been a baby, he put you up to buying off the
woman who was after him — and he did it by
fooling you into thinking that you were sav-

272 " NO CLUE ! "

ing the name, if not the very life, of your daugh-
ter's fiance"! He "

"Lies! Wild lie!" thundered Wilton, push-
ing back from the table. " I'm through
with "

" No ! No ! " shrilled Sloane. " Wait ! Prove
that, Hastings! Prove it — if you can! Shud-
dering saints! Have I ?" „

He looked once at Wilton's contorted face,
and recoiled, the movement confessing at last
his lack of faith in the man.

" I will," Hastings answered him, and moved
toward the door ; " I'll prove it — by the girl's
mother."

He threw open the door, and, sure now of
holding Sloane's attention, went in search of
Mrs. Brace and the sheriff.

XXI

" AMPLE EVIDENCE "

THE two men in the library waited a long
time for his return. Wilton, elbows on
the table, stared straight in front of him,
giving no sign of knowledge of the other's pres-
ence. Sloane fidgeted with the smelling-salts,
emitting now and then long-drawn, tremulous
eighs that were his own special vocabulary of
dissatisfaction. He spoke once.

"Mute and cringing martyrs!" he said, in
suspicious remonstrance. " If he'd say some-
thing we could deny ! So far, Tom, you're mixed
up in —

"Why can't you wait until he's through?"
Wilton objected roughly.

They heard people coming down the hall.
Lucille, following Mrs. Brace into the room,
went to her father. They could see, from her
look of grieved wonder, that Hastings had told
her of the charge against Wilton. The sheriff's
expression confirmed the supposition. His
mouth hung open, so that the unsteady fingers
with which he plucked at his knuckle like chin

273

274 "NO CLUE!"

appeared also to support his fallen jaw. He
made a weak-kneed progress from the door to
a chair near the screened fireplace.

For a full half-minute Hastings was silent,
as if to let the doubts and suspense of each
member of the group emphasize his dominance
of the situation. He reviewed swiftly some of
'the little things he had used to build up in his
own mind the certainty of Wilton's guilt: the
man's agitation in the music room at the dis-
covery, not that a part of the grey envelope had
been found, but that it contained some of the
words of the letter — his obvious alarm when
found quarrelling with Mrs. Brace in his office —
his hardly controlled impulses: once, outside
Sloane's bedroom, to accuse Berne Webster with-
out proof, and, on the Sloanehurst porch last
Sunday, to suggest that Sloane was guilty.

The detective observed now that he absolutely
ignored Mrs. Brace, not even looking in her
direction. He perceived also how she reacted
to that assumed indifference. The tightening
of her lips, the flutter of her mobile nostrils,
left him no longer any doubt that she was in
the mood to give him the cooperation she had
so bitterly promised.

" To be dragged down by such a woman ! " he
thought.

" Mrs. Brace," he said, " I've charged Judge

"AMPLE EVIDENCE" 275

Wilton with the murder of your daughter. I
say now he killed her, with premeditation, hav-
ing planned it after receiving a letter from her."

" Yes? "she responded, a certain tenseness in
her voice.

She had gone to a chair by th^ window; and,
like the sheriff, she faced the tn at the table:
Wilton, Sloane, and Lucille, who stood behind
her father, a hand on his shoulder.

Hastings slowly paced the floor as he talked,
his hands clasped behind him and now and then
moving the tail of his coat up and down. He
glanced at Mrs. Brace over the rims of his spec-
tacles, his eyes shrewd and keen. He showed
an unmistakable self-satisfaction, like the ela-
tion Wilton had detected in his bearing on two
former occasions.

" Now," he asked her, " what can you tell us
about that letter? "

Wilton, his chest pressed so hard against the
edge of the table that his breathing moved his
body, turned his swollen face upon her at last,
his eyes flaming under the thatch of his down-
drawn brows.

Mrs. Brace, her high-shouldered, lean frame
silhouetted against the window, began, in a col-
ourless, unemotioned tone:

" As you know, Mr. Hastings, I thought this
man Wilton owed me money, more than money.

276 "NO CLUE!"

I'd looked for him for twenty-six years. Less
than a year ago I located him here in Virginia,
and I came to Washington. He refused my re-
quests. Then, he stopped reading my letters —
sent them back unopened at first; later, he de-
stroyed them unread, I suppose."

She cleared her throat lightly, and spoke more
rapidly. The intensity of her hate, in spite of
her power of suppression, held them in a dis-
agreeable fascination.

" I was afraid of him, afraid to confront him
alone. I'd seen him kill a man. But I was in
desperate need. I thought, if my daughter could
talk to him, he would be brought to do the right
thing. I suppose," she said with a wintry smile,
"you'd call it an attempt to blackmail — if he
had let it go far enough.

" She wrote him a letter, on grey paper, and
sent it, in an oblong, grey envelope, to him
here at Sloanehurst last Friday night. He got
it Saturday afternoon. If he hadn't received
it, he'd never have been out on the lawn — with
a dagger he'd made for the occasion — at eleven
or eleven-fifteen, which was the time Mildred
said in her letter she'd see him there. She had
added that, if he did not keep the appointment,
she'd expose him — his crime in Pursuit."

" I see," Hastings said, on the end of her cold,
metallic utterance, and took from his pocket the

"AMPLE EVIDENCE" 277

flap of grey envelope. " Is this the flap of that
envelope; or, better still, are these fragments
of words and the word * Pursuit ' in your
daughter's handwriting? "

" I've examined them already," she said.
" They are my daughter's writing."

Her lips were suddenly thick, taking on that
appearance of abnormal wetness which had so
revolted him before.

" And I say what you've just said ! " she sup-
plemented, her eyebrows high upon her fore-
head. " Tom Wilton killed my daughter. And,
when I went to his office — I was sure then that
he'd be afraid to harm me so soon after Mil-
dred's death — I accused him of the murder. He
took it with a laugh. He said I could look at
it as a warning that "

"Wait!"

The interruption came from Wilton.

" I'm going to make a statement about this
thing ! " he ground out, his voice coarse and
rasping.

Hastings hung upon him with relentless
gaze.

" What have you got to say? "

" Much ! " returned Wilton. " I'm not going
to let myself be ruined on this charge because
of a mistake of my youth — mistake, I say! I'm
about to tell you the story of such suffering, such

278 "NO CLUE!"

misfortune, as no man has ever had to endure.
It explains that tragedy in Pursuit; it explains
my life; it explains everything. I didn't mur-
der that boy Dalton. I struck in self-defence.
But the twenty -nine wounds on his body "

He paused, preoccupied ; he was thinking less
of his hearers than of himself. It was at that
point, Hastings thought afterwards, that he be-
gan to lose himself in the ugly enjoyment of
describing his cruelty. It was as if the horrors
to which he gave voice subjected him to a spe-
cious and irresistible charm, equipped him with
a spurious courage, a sincere indifference to
common opinion.

" There is," he said, " a shadow on my soul.
My greatest enemy is hidden in my own
mind.

"But I've fought it, fought it all my life.
You may say the makeshifts I've adopted, the
strategy of my resistance, my tactics to outwit
this thing, do me little credit. I shall leave it
to you to decide. Results speak for themselves.
I have broken no law ; there is against me noth-
ing that would bring upon me the penalty of
man's laws."

He wedged himself more closely against the
edge of the table, and struck his left palm with
his clenched right hand.

"I tell you, Hastings, to have fought this

"AMPLE EVIDENCE" 279

thing, in whatever way, has been a task that
called for every ounce of strength I had. I've
lived in hell and walked with devils, against my
will. Not a day, not a night, have I been free
of this curse, or my fear of it. There have been
times when, every night for months, my slum-
bers were broken or impossible! The devilish
thing reached down into the depths of sleep and
with its foul and muddy grasp poisoned even
those clear, white pools — clear and white for
other men! But no matter

" You've heard of obsessions — of men seized
every six months with an irresistible desire to
drink — of kleptomaniacs who, having all they
need or wish, must steal or go mad — of others
driven by inexplicable impulse, mania, to set
fire to buildings, for the thrill they get out of
seeing the flames burst forth. Well, from my
earliest childhood until that moment when Roy
Dalton attacked me, I had fought an impulse
even more terrible than those. God, what a
tyranny! It drove me, drove me, that obses-
sion, at times amounting to mental compul-
sion, to strike, to stab, to make the blood
flow!"

He rose, getting to his feet slowly, so that his
burly bulk gained in size, like the slow upheaval
of a hillside. Swollen as his face had been, it
expanded now a trifle more. His nostrils coars-

280 "NO CLUE!"

ened more perceptibly. The puffiness that had
been in the back of his neck extended entirely
around his throat. He hung forward over the
table, giving all his attention to Hastings, who
was unmoved, incredulous.

" The Brace woman will tell you I had to kill
him," he proceeded more swiftly, displaying a
questionable ardour, like a man foreseeing de-
feat. " The mistake I made was in running
away — a bitter mistake! But those unnecessary
wounds, twenty-eight that need not have been
made! The obsession to see the blood flow drove
me to acts which a jury, I thought, would not
understand. And, if you don't see the force of
my explanation, Hastings, if you don't under-
stand, I shall be in little better plight — after
all these years ! "

He put, there, a sorrowful appeal into his
voice; but a sly contradiction of it showed
faintly in his face, a hint that he took a
crafty pleasure in dragging into the light
the depravity he had kept in darkness for a
lifetime.

" I got away. I drifted to Virginia, working
hard, studying much. I became a lawyer. But
always I had that affliction to combat; all my
life, man ! — always ! There were periods months
long when devils came up from the ugly cor-
ners of my soul to torture and tempt me.

"AMPLE EVIDENCE" 281

" It wasn't the ordinary temptation, not a
weak, pale idea of 'I'd like to kill and see the
blood ! ' — but an uproar, an imperial voice, an
endless command: 'Kill! Draw blood! Kill!'
— What it did to me

"But to this day I've beaten it! I've been
a good citizen. I've observed the law. I've re-
fused to let that involuntary lust for blood ruin
me or cast me out.

"Let me tell you how. I decided that, if I
had a hand in awarding just punishments, my
affliction would be abated enough for me to live
in some measure of security. There you have
the explanation of my being on the bench. I
cheated the obsession to murder by helping to
imprison or execute those who did mur-
der!

" That's why I can tell you of my innocence
of the Brace murder. Do you think I'd tell it
unless I knew there could be not even an excuse
for suspecting me? On the other hand, if I had
kept silent as to the true motive that drove my
hand to those unnecessary mutilations of young
Dalton — the only time, remember, that my weak-
ness ever got the better, or the worse, of me! —
if I had kept silent on that, you would have had
ground for suspecting me of a barbarous mur-
der then, and, arguing from that, of the Brace
murder now.

282 "NO CLUE!"

" Do I make myself clear? — Do you want me
to go into further detail?"

He sank slowly back to his chair, spent by
the strain of supreme effort. His breathing was
laboured, stertorous.

"That, Crown," Hastings denounced, "is a
confession! Knowing he's caught, he's got the
insolence to whine for mercy because of his
* sufferings ' ! Think of it ! The thing of which
he boasts is the thing for which he deserves
death — since death is supposed to be the su-
preme punishment. He tells us, in self-congrat-
ulatory terms, that he curbed his inhuman long-
ings, satisfied his lust for blood, by going on
the bench and helping to ' punish those who did
murder ! '

"Too cowardly to strike a blow, he skulked
behind the protection of his position. He made
of the judicial robe an assassin's disguise. On
the bench, he was free to sate his thirst for
others' sufferings — adding to a sentence five un-
deserved years here, ten there; slipping into his
instructions to juries a phrase that would mean
the death penalty !

" He revelled in judicial murders. He gloated
over the helpless people who, looking to him
for justice, were merely the victims of his ab-
horrent cruelty. He loved the look of sick sur-
prise in their starting eyes. He got a filthy joy

"AMPLE EVIDENCE" 283

out of seeing a man turn pale. He rubbed his
hands in glee when a woman swooned.
He—"

"I can't stand that— can't stand it!" Sloane
protested, hands over his eyes.

" What more do you want, to prove his guilt,
his abominable guilt? " Hastings swept on.
" You have the motive, hatred of this woman
here and her daughter — you have the proof of
the letter sent to him making the compulsory
appointment — you have his own crazy explana-
tion of his homicidal impulse, from which, by
the way, he never sought relief, a queer i im-
pulse' since it gave him time, hours, to plan
the crime and manufacture the weapon with
which he killed ! "

" I said at the start," Wilton put in hoarsely,
" this man Hastings was only theorizing. If he
had anything to connect me with "

" I have ! " Hastings told him, and came to
a standstill in front of the sheriff, bending over
him, as if to drive each statement into Crown's
reluctant mind.

" He got that letter a little after five in the
afternoon. He left me here, in this room, with
Sloane and Webster, and was gone three-quar-
ters of an hour. That was just before dinner.
He had the second floor, on that side of the house,
entirely to himself. He took a nail-file from

284 « NO CLUE ! "

Webster's dressing case, and in Webster's room
put a sharper point on it by filing it roughly
with the file-blade of his own pen knife.

" That's doubly proved : first, my magnet, with
which I went over the floor in Webster's room,
picked up small particles of steel. Here they
are."

He produced a small packet and, without un-
wrapping it, handed it to Crown.

" Again : you'll find that the file-blade of his
knife retained particles of the steel in the little
furrows of its corrugated surface. I know, be-
cause last Sunday, as your car came up the
drive-way, I borrowed his knife, on the pretext
of tightening a screw in the blade of mine. And
I examined it."

He put up a silencing hand as Wilton forced
a jeering laugh.

" But there's more to prove his manufacture
and ownership of the weapon that killed the
woman. He made the handle from the end of
a slat on the bed in the room which I occupied
that night. The inference is obvious: he didn't
care to risk going outside the house to hunt for
the wood he needed; he wouldn't take it from
an easily visible place ; and, having stolen some-
thing from one room, he paid his attention to
mine. All this is the supercaution of the so-
called 'smart criminal.' It matches the risk

"AMPLE EVIDENCE" 285

he took in returning to the body to hunt for the
weapon. That was why he was there when Web-
ster found the body.

" The handle of the dagger matches the wood
of the slat I've just mentioned. You won't find
that particular slat upstairs now. It was taken
out of the house the next day, broken into sec-
tions and packed in his bag of golf-sticks. But
there is proof in this room of the fact that he
and he only made the dagger.

" You'll find in the edge of the large blade of
his penknife a nick, triangular in shape, which
left an unmistakable groove in the wood every
time he cut into it. That little groove shows,
to the naked eye, on the end of the shortened
slat and on the handle of the dagger. If you
doubt it "

"Thunder!" Crown interrupted, in an awed
tone. "You're right!"

He had taken the dagger from his pocket and
given it minute scrutiny. He handed it now to
Sloane.

Wilton, watching the scene with flaming eyes,
sat motionless, his chin thrust down hard upon
his collar, his face shining as if it had been
polished with a cloth.

Sloane gave the dagger back to Crown before
he spoke, in a wheezy, shrill key : " They're there,
the marks, the grooves ! "

286 "NO CLUE!"

He did not look at Wilton.

Hastings straightened to his full stature, and
looked toward Wilton.

"Now, Judge Wilton," he challenged, "you
said you preferred to answer the accusation here
and now. Do you, still? "

Wilton, slowly raising the heavy lids of his
eyes, like a man coming out of a trance, pre-
sented to him and to the others a face which,
in spite of its flushed and swollen aspect, looked
singularly bleak.

" It's not an accusation," he said in his rough-
ened, grating voice. " It's a network of suppo-
sitions, of theories, of impossibilities — a crazy
structure, all built on the rotten foundation of
a previous misfortune."

" Arrest him, Crown ! " Hastings commanded
sharply.

Wilton tried to laugh, but his heavy lips
merely worked in a crazy barrenness of sound.
With a vague, clumsy idea of covering up his
confusion, he started to light a cigar.

Hq stopped, hands in mid-air, when Crown,
shambling to his feet, said:

"Judge, I've got to act. He's proved his
case."

" Proved it ! " Wilton made weak protest.

" If he hasn't, let's see your penknife."

Wilton put his hand into his trousers pocket,

"AMPLE EVIDENCE" 287

began the motion that would have drawn out
the knife, checked it, and withdrew his hand
empty. He managed a mirthless, dreary laugh,
a rattling sound that fell, dead of any feeling,
from his grimacing lips.

"No, by God!" he refused. "I'll give it to
neither of you. I don't have to ! "

In that moment, he fell to pieces. With his
thick shoulders dropping forward, he became
an inert mass bundled against the table edge.
The blood went out of his face, so that his cheeks
hollowed, and shadows formed under his eyes.
He was like the victim of a quick consumption.

Crown's eyes were on Hastings.

" That's enough," the old man said shortly.

" Too much," agreed Crown. " Judge, there's
no bail — on a murder charge."

" I'm very glad," Mrs. Brace commented, a
terrible satisfaction in her voice. " He pays me
—at last."

In the music room Dr. Garnet had just given
Lucille and Hastings a favourable report on
Berne Webster's condition.

" I should so like to tell him," she said, her
glance entreating; "if you'll let me! Wouldn't
he get well much faster if he knew it — knew the
suspense was all over — that neither he nor
father's suspected any more? "

288 " NO CLUE ! "

"I think," the doctor gave his opinion with
exaggerated deliberation, " it might — in fact, it
really will be his best medicine."

She thanked him, stars swimming in her
eyes.

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